Burn to Black
by cryptonomicon
Summary: When the haunting dream of a strange world burning brings Ichigo to a heady realization, the world gets turned on its head as the chaos comes loose.
1. King of Pain

"There's a little black spot on the sun today,

That's my soul up there."

Sting: 'King of Pain'

When the dream began, he held his breath with his eyes closed.

He could feel.

Wind whispered around his ears, and he felt it stir to life the hair teasing at his ears, the clothes resting on his body, the soul lying stagnant within his heart.

He could hear.

It sang quietly, like a breath after a long pause, and stirred unease into the strung out tendrils of his senses that he himself could not hope to explain.

He could taste.

It was a bitter brine of newly thawed water; still cold on his lips as he breathed out a lamenting hesitance to an audience he could not see.

He could smell.

The faint, ominous tinge of ash on the wind as it flowed around him in intricate knots, promising a fire whose warmth was yet too far away for him to know.

And from all this, minute, detailed input, it was no wonder why he was unabashedly afraid of opening his eyes to see what lay before him. His heart was clenched in a juxtaposing set of waves, washing in and out of his mind as the fleeting thoughts raced to gain purchase against the overwhelming input of his heart.

From that, all he could draw was that no matter how afraid he was, no matter how much his instincts were telling him to turn tail and flee, he had a duty.

To open his eyes and see the truth in all of its gruesome glory, no matter what.

So he obeyed, and opened his eyes.

There could have been nothing more frightening to his waking eyes than the scene that played out before them then, and there could have been no more stable a reason for this other than the idea that what he saw, though apparently normal to any science or logic, was screaming with tragic wrong to every fiber of his mind.

There were mountains, boulders, jagged peaks yielding into a piercing blue sky, strangely unhindered by clouds, gray quarries stretching for miles in violent angles of discord as they sloped down unto unseen horizons beyond the limited vision of his eyes. And there was an orange glow from far off in the distance, of a deep-breathing flame.

But to the strangely far-seeing gaze of his mind, there was not a trace, microscopic or otherwise, of snow or ice. No flutter of movement, no trace of chill, no tinge of fear for the cold that should have been there. And that absence, of snow, of ice, of _peace_, left an equally draining hole in his heart, and as his eyes raked the scene, the pain seemed to grow as the dawning realization came to him that he was, without question…

Damningly alone.

"This can't be," he said to himself, and his throat was terribly tight as he spoke, an almost tearful rasp to his voice as a strange level of uncertainty began to take root in his mind. It was almost as if the absence of snow had somehow robbed him of his will to speak, as it was starkly unusual for him to speak in any voice other than one that was loud and presenting.

But now, he found, all he could manage was a hoarse whisper in the backlash of the unknown loss tormenting his heart.

"_**You're right 'bout that at least, Majesty**_," a warped voice whispered from behind him, and he turned with wide auburn eyes to face the speaker he had grudgingly come to know so well.

The pallid reflection of his own face stared back at him, yellow eyes glinting in the light with a contrasting dark shine, the characteristically wide smile solemnly absent from the Hollow's features. If he of all people was serious, it only spoke more affirmation to what his senses were already telling him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his brown eyes narrowing in suspicion. Though he doubted the cause lay in him alone, even his involvement was cause for immediate worry.

"_**I don't trust leavin' ya alone in this place**_," the Hollow answered darkly, and a shiver of dread began to bed between his shoulders. "_**The old man don't either**_."

His fiery brows began to furrow. It seemed that even the inner sanctums of himself were uncomfortable with this place, wherever it was.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked then.

The alabaster head shook in denial of his statement, the amber eyes looking back up at him sharply. "_**Hell no. You're the one that saw it in the first place, Majesty. Just cuz ya can't recognize it ain't no fault o' mine.**_"

The teen growled at himself, the previously growing shiver easily transitioning into frustration as his nerves began to mount to a heady peak. "But how do I know this place? None of this makes any sense!"

Before the hallowed side of himself could answer, and angry scream tore through the air. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and his heart thundered in panic. It was the cry of a demon, the thrashing violence evident even in its cry, and though he could hear its echo, and knew it to yet be far away, it did not stop the onslaught of fear from tempting at his heart.

No hollow, human, or creature, could ever have made such a noise.

As he looked about in his fright, his auburn eyes began to notice ripples threading across his dream, distorting its once crystal clear image as he realized with just as much panic that the vision was fading. He felt as if he were scrambling up a steep slope as he tried to cling to the dream despite its dark effect on him, knowing that there was something that needed to be done with the information he had just taken in.

Something fatally important.

Whirling to face the reverse of himself, he cried out over the sudden gust of wind that had aroused in his turmoil, only to have his voice, still hoarse and weak, drown out by the wind. But when the opposite side of the duo opened his mouth, the black orifice had the strange effect of seeming to slow down time, as the wind died, and the moment in which he spoke seemed to draw out for lifetimes.

"_**Resonance.**_"

When the dream ended, he held his breath with his eyes closed.

He could feel the panic still wracking through his body, though now he could feel the bed beneath him, the warmth of the first rays of sun resting on his face as the sensation, robbed in his panic, began to return to him. He opened his eyes slowly, sitting up and trying valiantly to get breath back into his stiff chest.

He looked out his window as realization came crashing down on him, and noted with a grave dread that on the sun, just rising over the roll of the horizon, there was a small black spot.

Leaping out of his bed and taking one stride over to his closet, he threw open the door he knew his Shinigami companion was sleeping behind. Aroused by the sudden movement, she opened her eyes blearily, staring at him with a confused and worried expression, her normally wide eyes widening at some feature unseen to him.

It was probably the lack of color in his face, but he could not be sure.

"Rukia," he said, his voice still tight, "we need to go to the Soul Soceity, now."

"Why, Ichigo?"

He weighed his words. "There's something wrong with Captain Hitsugaya."

She bolted upright, her hard-earned training instantly relaying the gravity of the situation to her as she began to truly awaken. "How can you be sure?"

"Because, I just saw his inner world burning."

* * *

Hello again, and I'm back for the time being. I've been thoroughly getting into BLEACH lately, and I've been forming this plot for about a month now, so I thought I might get to it. And, for those of you who are severely confused, that's good. You probably won't understand what's going on at least for another two chapters. I know that this one is short, it was meant to be. And also for your reference, this is post-DDR, as it was already referenced in the chapter. I apologize in advance if the style isn't very good; I was a bit hyped up off of the District 9 music score, so it may be kind of off. This fic is the first of a 2-part series, which I plan on working on whenever I can. Hopefully consistently, because I really like the plot. This is a yaoi, though I will not tell you the pairing yet, otherwise that would spoil the fun. (Unless you can guess it, in which case you're smart and deserve praise.) In any case, I am in need of some help with the second fic, as I have yet to decide the pairing in it. I have the plot laid out, but I need the other half of the romance. Please vote in a review, and I will follow your input. Here are the potential pairings for FIC-2:

Shuuhei-Byakuya

Shuuhei-Renji

Shuuhei-Kensei

Shuuhei-Ikkaku

Thanks all, and Merry Christmas!

8-90's love,

crypto


	2. Fragile

"On and on, the rain will fall, like tears from the star,

On and on, the rain will sing, how fragile we are."

Sting: 'Fragile'

It was raining in Soul Society when he arrived. It was a cold, heavy rain that shrieked as it fell from the sky, dancing down in sheets of glimmering daggers as the world spun beneath it. Ichigo's heart raced at a dizzying discord, his mind in a rolling tumult over what he had experienced.

He admitted to himself that had it been any other person under the sun, he probably would not have cared. There would have been no sense of disturbance in his heart, no worry in his mind save for the sleep he had lost. But as his haste clenched at his throat, clamored at his heart, he knew why he was pushed into such a frantic frenzy.

Because it _wasn't _just any other person. It _wasn't_ just a landscape that was the weaving of his imagination that he had seen rise into flame. It was_ Toshiro Hitsugaya_ who was falling victim to this, whatever atrocity it was. It was the inner world of the wielder of the strongest ice-type zanpakuto he had seen _burning _in the shadows of the night.

It was he, who amongst the whole of the Soul Society had come closest to uncovering Aizen's deception. It was he, who for reasons buried for scores of painful years, carried the weight of the dead, and the burden of secrecy on shoulders too small for such trials. It was he, who out of all the people he had ever seen, held a tragic beauty unlike any he had ever known, a beauty that cried out in pain beneath the stars as cold as his heart to end that which had not yet begun in favor of saving himself the sorrow of living alone as a genius and a prince.

He had parted ways with Rukia upon entering the Soul Society, his speed far beyond hers in his haste to uncover the truth. He did not know if she had left his side to search for some other means, or if she was merely trailing behind him. It sorrowed him to feel no pain in leaving her, to feel no worry for her safety. But such was the unraveled state of his mind that he could not bring himself to look back, lest he miss that which he was searching for ahead of him.

And as he came vaulting over the roofs of the outer limits of the Squad 10 barracks, he couldn't help but feel his heart race all the faster. All previous thoughts forgotten, he stretched his blunted senses as far as they would go, struggling to feel the icy reiatsu that the small captain was so avidly associated with. He had never been a savant at such things, and he cursed his own lacking abilities as he landed down before the front doors of the captain's office.

He did not bother to knock as he thrust the doors open, the poor portal opening with a loud _crack _as the wood unceremoniously collided with its frame. With a brash yell, he cried aloud into the office, "Toshiro!"

"_**What do you want, Ichigo?**_" a cold voice asked from the opposite side of the room, and, much to his surprise, Toshiro was sitting, as he always did, behind his desk, his snowy head bowed as he focused on a sheet of paper beneath his hands. He did not both to look up at him, in spite of his dramatic entry.

"You…" Ichigo said in surprise, his jaw suddenly lax and his mind blank of words. "You're okay!"

"_**I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be,**_" the captain replied, though a bit shadily, setting aside the sheet of paper and retrieving another from the dwindling stack sitting on the corner of his desk. Ichigo just stood in awe, his shihakusho dripping wet and a slow chill crawling over his skin as the lukewarm air of the office settled around his soaked skin.

Despite the fact that there was not a hair out of place on the head of the young captain, Ichigo couldn't help but narrow his eyes. Usually the small captain wasn't altogether fond of intrusions, especially from him. And, to his growing surprise, the small captain had made no mention of the incorrect usage of his name, or even seemed to have registered it. Nor had he even resorted to the growling use of his last name to show any sign of irritation.

Stepping further inside, Ichigo looked at the younger man closely. He knew that Toshiro must have been aware of him watching him, and yet he still made no move to contradict or even acknowledge it. There was something off about him, and Ichigo needed to find out what.

"_**If you insist on staying here to stare at me, Ichigo, would you at least have the decency to close the door behind you?**_" the young man chided, startling the brightly-haired teen and making him frown. The brown eyes darted to the door, which he had indeed left open. A strong breeze began to kick up, slanting the rain as it fell, the cold weather slowly encroaching on the room.

Doing as requested in an attempt to give himself time to figure out what his observations could tell him, Ichigo clasped the door and slid it shut, realizing with a sharp breath what had seemed different.

If nothing else was a dead giveaway, there was the fact that Toshiro's _voice_ did not sound the same. It was still very much his own, but there was a deep, rumbling, underlying echo to it that settled uneasily with the substitute soul reaper.

Clenching his hands into fists, he turned back to face the small captain, a steely glare settling on the young man's still concentrated form. "Toshiro," he said in a dark tone, "what is going on?"

"_**I'm afraid that I don't follow you,**_" came his answer, though there was a split-second pause that wracked the tension in his mind to an all time high. The voice was _definitely_ different.

Striding forward in the first degrees of anger, Ichigo reached across the wooden desk and grasped at the captain's narrow wrist, jerking it so hard that the brush it had been holding fell with a hollow clatter onto the paper he had been signing. They sat in silence for a moment, realization thundering through Ichigo as fact after chilling fact settled in his mind.

The very _skin_ of the wielder of the strongest ice zanpakuto in the Soul Society was _warm _to the touch. Not even lukewarm, but radiating a generous amount of heat. This idea rocked the fear in his mind with an almighty strike, as he knew from experience, having carried the boy in his arms before when the world was cold and the blood on his shihakusho fresh and having been chilled to the bone by even having held him despite the layers of clothing that had separated their bare skin. To have that skin, frozen alabaster in every respect, be warm to his touch, was more disturbing than he ever could have described.

And as his grasp lingered, he also realized that the icy captain was trembling. It was a faint tremor, hardly enough to impair his writing, but just enough shake the pale bones in his body to an unsteady rhythm. To have the small captain be trembling, from any cause whatsoever was means enough to be worried.

Before Ichigo could comment further, the small icy captain snatched his wrist away, daring for the first time to look up at him with a set of murderous eyes.

Eyes that could no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, be related to their once tranquil and striking teal. Instead, they were a deep bleeding red, glaring up at him with a wary uneasiness. And yet, despite their color, they held no malicious or even evil intent. If anything, they seemed distantly familiar, yet just as out of place as everything else about the situation was.

"Where's Toshiro?" Ichigo asked with a slightly wavering voice, trying to hide the panic that was beginning to fray at the edges of his sanity.

The red eyes grew sorrowful, and the voice that had been speaking before lost all traces of its Toshiro-based origin. "_**I don't know**_," it answered, and at long last Ichigo remembered the source of the voice's familiarity. It came from the same resonance so long ago that had forever given him the image of Toshiro's inner world.

It was none other than Hyorinmaru's voice speaking to him across the darkness in the room. It was a deep, echoing timbre that despite its power held a weariness and exhaustion that made Ichigo feel inundated with confusion.

He felt his mouth open and close a few times, his tongue dry and his jaw stiff. But no matter how many times he floundered for words, he just couldn't bring himself to think of anything to say. It was like trying to get water out of a desert grave, or dry sand out of an ocean's worth of tears.

He was very thankful when Hyorinmaru spoke, though it was a nervous, uneasy kind of thanks. "_**I know not when he was taken, but when I went in search of his spirit and found it gone**_," the dragon closed his eyes, his lips thinning into a crumbling look very unlike the person he was inhabiting., "_** I now take his soul's place in this body**_." The small captain's face turned down, the red eyes looking almost curiously at the small pale hands sitting in his lap as they opened once more.

"_**It is so heavy.**_"

Ichigo couldn't understand what the zanpakuto meant by that, but he imagined that living as an ethereal force was a plane of existence far lighter than even the body of a Soul Reaper. "Hyorinmaru," he said slowly, his throat still dry and the name still unfamiliar on his tongue, "there's something wrong with Toshiro's inner world." They looked at each other for a long moment before the substitute could even bring himself to finish his sentence.

"I saw it burning."

The snowy head sank, and the red eyes of the ice zanpakuto looked up at him with a weary, fevered fear. "_**I know,**_" the dragon answered, and Ichigo blinked in surprise. "_**It is usually the place of the zanpakuto to protect the inner world when not engaged in battle. But when I went in search of Hitsugaya's soul presence, I somehow took its place in his body.**_" The young man's head shook from side to side, and Ichigo could see the pale blush of fever upon the back of the neck of the cherubic captain. It seemed that destructive flame was working from the inside out. "_**Now, it seems, something else has taken residence in my world, and is keeping me away.**_"

Before Ichigo had the chance to even think of another question, the face of the captain grew pale, and in a shuddering motion he slumped forward in his chair, clasping at his forehead as his breath drew in, quick and ragged. Ichigo rushed forward, his heart thundering as he grasped the shoulders of the small captain, feeling them tremble violently beneath his hands.

"Toshiro!" he cried, catching himself only afterwards as he remembered that even if it was Toshiro's body, his heart was elsewhere. He shook the shoulders in his hands gently, trying to mask his own spreading tremble. "Hyorinmaru," he corrected, and the withering gaze of the dragon looked up at him through glassy eyes.

And where before the eyes were a steady and unwavering ruby, there were now intruding splinters of ashen, dying gray stabbing through them. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, then there was no surer a death sentence than that. Whatever was going on, whoever had done this, it was slowly killing both Hyorinmaru and Toshiro's body.

"We have to get you to Captain Unohana!" he said, pulling the captain to his feet and realizing with a start how light he was. Hadn't Hyorinmaru commented on how heavy the body was to him? Perhaps it was the dementia of the fever throwing his senses into tumult, but there was no time to let that impede their haste. But the will of the body in his hands to move was lost, as the face contorted in pain, Toshiro's small hands clenching the sleeves of his shihakusho in a crushing grip.

Even when suffering unimaginable amounts of pain he held strength unrelentingly frightening.

"Can you move?" he asked lamely, almost slapping himself for asking such a stupid question of someone so obviously in suffering. But to his surprise he received a reply, the struggling shake of Toshiro's head told him that the zanpakuto struggling beneath his skin could make no such journey, even with assistance.

Taking no time in hooking his arm under the legs of the captain, Ichigo rushed out of the office, clasping the young body to his chest as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop, trying to discern through the darkness and the rain his way to the 4th Division barracks.

In the darkness, it seemed, his sense of direction was destroyed with his nerves. It felt like the flames from his dream were licking at the back of his neck, threatening to consume him and ravage all that he couldn't protect in the aftermath. The entire situation was a nightmare that he doubted even Kurotsuchi could think up. Each landing brought him that much closer to a source of hope, and yet the further he went, the more he worried.

He worried for himself, and what this strange situation's effects would do to him. He was worried for Hyorinmaru, and if he could survive this attempt at his destruction. But most avidly, he worried for Toshiro, and what ill fate had befallen his soul.

* * *

Gracious, I almost forgot about the author's note. Shame on me, I suppose. To answer your questions, yes this is a IchixHitsu fic (if, after reading this chapter, you weren't entirely convinced). The polls for the pairing in fic 2 are still taking votes, so please let me know what you think. This fic is obviously not debatable, as I'm already two chapters into it. I realize that this chapter may not be entirely as awesome as the first, but I'm still getting used to writing for Bleach characters. It's a new eneavor for me, so please be patient. Here are the pairings again, and how many votes each has gotten thus far:

Shuuhei-Byakuya: 1

Shuuhei-Renji: 0

Shuuhei-Kensei: 1

Shuuhei-Ikkaku: 0

Thanks everyone, and see you soon!

8-90's love,

crypto


	3. A Thousand Years

"I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times  
An endless turning stairway climbs  
To a tower of souls."

Sting: 'A Thousand Years'

The fourth division clinic was empty when he shouldered the doors open. He called out into the dark halls, his voice sounding louder to his own ears than he had expected. His grip on the small captain in his arms tightened. He could _feel_ Toshiro's fever through his soaked shihakusho, just as easily as he could feel his own thoughts racing through his head.

"Hello!" he called out through the darkness. No lights stirred along the halls, the dampened silence hanging in the air like smog. "Please!" he yelled louder. "Someone, I need help!" His voice cracked, and he burst into a run, galloping down the hallways in hopes of locating someone. Hanataro, Lieutenant Isane, Captain Unohana, _anyone. _He would have cut down an army of hollows and faced down Aizen without question if only fate could guarantee his finding of _one, singular person_ that would help him.

When a light came on, he just almost wept with relief. And as he skittered towards the door, Captain Unohana herself stepped out. She was not dressed in her captain's uniform. He couldn't blame her; it was an ungodly hour of the night. And even captains, save for perhaps Toshiro, did have the habit of sleeping at some point. He had been amazed by Toshiro being awake when he arrived, but now there was at least an explanation as to why. An explanation that he was not fond of in the least, but that was beyond his reach to change.

For now.

"Ichigo Kurosaki?" the female captain asked, her brows raised in mild confusion. "What brings you to the Soul Society so suddenly?" She shook her head, stepping out into the hall to greet him properly. She still smiled softly, as she always seemed to. "I ask this not because I am unhappy to see you, but it is merely a strange occurrence for you to visit the 4th Division unless gravely injured."

She paused when her eyes grazed over the damp bundle in his arms. Admittedly, Toshiro didn't much look like himself at the moment. With his hair bogged down by water, and his small body almost entirely hidden by the too-large folds of his captain's cloak and shihakusho, he looked more to be a pile of sodden laundry than the spritely captain he normally was.

The face of the 4th Squad Captain became grave faster than he comprehended. "Ichigo, why are you carrying a captain's haori?" she queried, and he realized that she had not yet realized that it was Toshiro he was carrying. And with another startling jolt, Ichigo realized that even his blunted senses could find no trace of the other man's spiritual pressure.

"It's not just the cloak," he said, adjusting the position of his arm so the face of the 10th Squad Captain would be visible to his fellow captain. "It's Toshiro," he said, and he watched as Unohana's entire visage stiffened. "Captain Unohana, please… I-"

The young man didn't even have the opportunity to finish his sentence before the female captain has all but scooped Toshiro out of his arms. "Kurosaki," she said, looking back at him over her shoulder with a look that made him understand why she had a reputation, "I will be needing answers when I have finished assessing Captain Hitsugaya's condition. Until then I would ask you to wait outside the room we will be occupying. It is highly important that this situation be contained, and that can only be accomplished with a protected barrier. Do you understand?"

He nodded numbly, following after her as she walked swiftly through the halls. She left the lights of the building off, and he could only assume that she could afford to do so because she knew the building well enough to maneuver it without them. But then, he also supposed that the more lights went on, the more attention would be drawn to the division building. And the more attention was drawn, the more panic would spread as news leaked out.

He stumbled several times, but kept his curses for his stubbed toes tied to his tongue. The decision was made in the best interest for their entire party, so any complaints would not be coming from him.

When Captain Unohana turned and closed one of the doors behind her, Ichigo stopped in his tracks. The darkness closed in around him like a rope being knotted into a noose, and the thundering breath in his chest stilled. There was no sound from the other side of the door, and he stood stiffly in the hallway. Each groan of a beam, every drip of water on the roof caught the attention of his senses, and his hands fidgeted on Zangetsu's hilt. There had been tension radiating from Unohana, and now he had his own tension to grapple with in the dark.

Thoughts scrambled through his head, quantifying to his inquiring mind why exactly the situation distressed him so much. Initially, it had been the sheer terror of the dream that had driven him into action. And now that the panic of the vision had faded, there was a new uneasiness that remained.

He'd never actually met Toshiro for a long time. He'd been accepted as a Substitute long before he and the snowy captain actually met face to face. He'd heard about him from Renji when he'd had the thought to ask. He'd heard the message that Lieutenant Isane had relayed over the air waves that fateful day. But at the time he'd been too preoccupied with saving Rukia and his own skin that he hadn't given the message much thought. It wasn't until afterwards that he realized that the Soul Society had almost lost _another_ one of their Captains. And when he found out that Toshiro was but a child, he was more than stunned.

His interest had progressed from there, but as with Rukia and Renji, the sheer distance between the Soul Society and the World of the Living prevented him from acting on it all very much. He would always ask about the various captains whenever Rukia or Renji were around, which encompassed his interest in Toshiro smoothly enough that it wouldn't be noticed. And, in all reality, there was little to mask other than interest. But as the battles wore on, and Toshiro persisted to display loyalty to Ichigo's intentions, the view began to shift.

There began to appear a geniality that he'd never displayed to others nearly as quickly as he had to Toshiro. There was something about the young captain that always made him seem… reliable. From the very start, there was a steadfast hardiness that Ichigo came to respect, and a youthful tang that he also came to enjoy teasing. He became a satellite friend, rather than an acquaintance. And slowly the satellite landed on his world, planted his feet, and rocked it to the core.

It was about that time that the incident with the Kingdom Treasure Stamp occurred, and the view he had of his relationship with the young captain was turned completely on its head. Nothing regarding the Soul Society had been the same since, and Ichigo didn't think it ever would be. The sheer knowledge that he and Toshiro had experienced the same breed of pain, that he had been able to chip even a small hole through the deeping wall of ice that was the young man's emotional defenses was a victory indeed.

The high and mighty Captain of the 10th Squad, Toshiro Hitsugaya, in the end, had accepted his help. And Ichigo of all people knew how humbling it was to have to accept the aid of another, but never once did he ever hear Toshiro lament this. Ichigo had successfully made the young man _understand_ a concept that they now shared as equals: the overcoming of pain through trust in others.

He didn't realize he'd sat down until the tip of his zanpakuto hit the door. He startled himself, then settled himself as the rain droned on outside the world of his thoughts. Yes, that was why the distress had overcome his fraudulent senses. That was why he was on the verge of pulling his fiery hair out. All of the progress he'd made, and the friendship he'd earned by luck, was on the verge of crumbling. And though he'd suffered loss in the past, and knew full well that the future did not come without it, he was not willing to deal with such a crushing blow now.

"You look mighty stressed, Mr. Kurosaki."

Ichigo completely missed the opportunity to resist jumping out of his skin. Instead, he jumped nearly a foot in the air from where he had been sitting, tumbling over his arms, legs, and zanpakuto in his probably rather comical surprise. Once his rather painful tumble had fretfully wound to a stop, he looked up from the floor, the first thing meeting his eyes a large splash of rather tacky pink in the shadows of the hallway.

"Captain Kyoraku," he muttered out dumbly. The man's wily lips turned up into a grin as he offered a helping hand down to the teenager. Ichigo thankfully took it, rising and rubbing his shoulder where Zangetsu's handle had jabbed him. "What are you doing here?" he asked before realizing the meaning of his own question. He had asked out of habit, but this time there was actually good reason. For the drunkard companion of Captain Ukitake to be anywhere that wasn't in bed stone-faced drunk was unusual, especially this late in the night.

"Oh come now, Mr. Kurosaki. Can't an old man visit his friends when they come to town?" The older man's smile was barely visible under the shadow of his hat, but Ichigo could see the faintest twinges of his pulling at his lips.

"Were it at any time other than the present, I would say yes." Ichigo looked at the man, his own expression hardening. He looked down at the floor, away from the other man as one of his hands strayed to run through his still soaked hair. "But that's not the case." His yes returned to the other man, then. And from the lack of pull on the older captain's lips, Ichigo could tell he was no longer on the verge of smiling. "And I think you and I both know that."

"You're smarter than people give you credit for, Mr. Kurosaki." The captain folded his arms into the sleeves of his pink kimono, letting out a short sigh.

"Thank you, Captain Kyoraku. But my question still stands."

The brunette captain frowned a little bit, as if displeased by his own lack of subtlety. "I could ask you the same question, Mr. Kurosaki. We don't see you very often, and I mean no insult when I say that whenever we see you, it's rarely when conditions are good."

Ichigo could not deny that statement. "I'll tell you if you tell me," he said, trying to wheedle the captain out of talking in circles. He didn't have the wits, wiles, or patience at that point to try and verbally joust with the man. And he gathered that in the end, he probably would have lost to the man's superior resourcefulness.

"Well then, Mr. Kurosaki, let's indulge each other, shall we?" he said, obviously marginally pleased with the accord. "But let's not repeat what we both already know, eh? I already know that Captain Unohana is in the room next to us, attempting to save whatever is left of Captain Hitsugaya. What I want to know, Mr. Kurosaki, is _why._"

Ichigo leaned back against the wall, slowly sliding down into a sitting position as the haze of chaos again descended on his mind. Why did he have to keep reliving this? How many times would he have to repeat what he'd seen? The likelihood that he would have to repeat it more times than he would have liked to seemed prevalent, so he let out a stiff sigh. He heard the fluttering of Captain Kyoraku's many robes as the other man sat down also.

"Because something's killing him," Ichigo said, the deadpan in his voice quivering with the emotion he was still trying to drown. He buried his head in his hands, feeling the silent surprise roll off the other man in waves. "I had a dream…" He paused. "No. It was a nightmare. I dragged Rukia out of bed to take me to the Soul Society, just to make sure it wasn't true. But when I got here…"

"It was not as I expected, Mr. Kurosaki. " For the second time that night, Ichigo failed to resist the urge to jump out of his skin. However, on this round his fumble was far less drastic, and probably far less comical to the audience at hand. But when his attention, far quicker recovered, returned to the lady captain, he was not pleased at the sight of the unhappy line that was her lips. "I would ask that you and Captain Kyoraku please follow me. There are some questions I need to ask of you, Ichigo, and some answers that I may need help finding with Captain Kyoraku."

The two men followed after her silently, and the door slid shut behind the two of them as they entered. Ichigo resisted the urge to let his eyes wander the way they wanted to, to resist the heartache that was teasing at the corners of his vision. In the end his efforts failed, and his auburn eyes glanced towards the snowy captain.

He instantly regretted it.

The young captain lay across the bed, covered up to his chest by a ghostly white sheet. Were his skin not flushed with fever, it probably would have been hard to tell the difference between them. His breath was barely present, save for the minute movement of the sheets as his small chest rose and fell in shallow pants. Even after that spare second, he felt sick to himself, and quickly looked away. He knew if he stared longer, all of his control would strip away, and reckless abandon would take over.

And, having learned this from Toshiro himself, reckless abandon may be heartfelt, but never productive against an enemy who _had no heart_.

"Mr. Kurosaki, I might ask how exactly you came to know about Captain Hitsugaya's condition," the woman in front of him asked, and he paused before answering. He had to gather some sort of thought together that could justly explain what he had seen. What he had _felt_. When no poetry came, he simply began.

"I had a dream, Captain Unohana," he said truthfully, and she looked at him with obvious surprise in her eyes. He could tell there was some manner of problem with his answer, and he chose to interject with his own logic before she could supplant him. "But before I explain, you should know something. When the incident with Kusaka came about, I came into contact with a resonance from his Hyorinmaru. I have had contact with the memories of that sword, and you should know that from that experience, what I am about to say is wholly truth."

That said, the two adults were successfully silent, much to his intent. "I had a dream , in which I saw Toshiro's inner world burning." He could sense that the statement rocked the two captains, far more than he himself expected or understood. "I knew it to be true, because as I mentioned before, I've seen it from the resonance. I woke Rukia up immediately, and she and I arrived in the Soul Society very shortly after I awoke. I failed to realize that the times were different through the Dongai Precepice World, and we arrived late in the night when in the World of the Living it had barely been morning. I went to Captain Hitsugaya's office upon arrival."

"Did you find him as he is now?" Captain Kyoraku asked as Captain Unohana's gaze focused on the young captain in question.

Ichigo shook his head, again seeming to surprise the captains. "No. He was awake when I arrived, working on some manner of paperwork. I can only assume that's what captains do, though not at that time of night by usual standards."

"At that time, Mr. Kurosaki, were Captain Hitsugaya's eyes a different color?" Captain Unohana asked, still not paying full attention to his direction entirely. All of his words were reaching her, but her medical mind was obviously at work.

He nodded, Captain Kyoraku looking at both of them in surprise. "A different color? You can't be serious."

Ichigo looked to the Squad 8 Captain. "Hyorinmaru explained to my why. Captain Unohana, from what he's said, there's something that's invaded his inner world. When he felt the absence of Toshiro's soul and went reaching out to find it, something managed to enter and push him out and into Toshiro's body. That's why his eyes are a different color. But there's something that's worrying me. Just before we left there were flecks of gray starting to appear. Do you know what might have caused this?"

"Ichigo, you must understand that it is impossible to separate a soul reaper's soul from their body. To begin with they are but souls, so there is no way that what you say can be the truth," the female captain said, though she seemed unsatisfied with that statement even as she said it herself.

He heard a sigh and looked over to Captain Kyoraku, who was scratching at the side of his face with a rather unhappy expression. "Unless," he said slowly, drawing both of their attention over to him, "there's some concept here we're not grasping."

They both waited for his answer with fear.

"What you say of the spiritual body may be true as far as we are aware of, but think for a moment. Soul Reapers bleed, yet retain no scars to their spiritual pressure or capacity for power. Thus there must be some other manner of dimension within us. And once destroyed, our individual minds and memories separate from a body and return to the cycle of rebirth, so there has to be some manner of release between the two. So, from that assumption, we can guess that there are three parts to a Soul Reaper: the body, the individual mind, and the spiritual pressure, which originates from the contract with the zanpakuto." Ichigo could feel where this was going, but could not fathom to what end someone would want to separate the three parts, if only to gain access to one.

"But two of those three components never transfer through the cycle of rebirth," Kyoraku continued, his frown deepening. "The body and the spiritual pressure are never recycled. Only the individual mind, with all of its memories and feelings, is strong enough to endure the cycle of rebirth."

Silence descended across the room, and Ichigo looked over to the where the small captain lay, knowing that the eyes of the others were with him.

"Which means that whoever did this is trying to find a way to permanently remove souls from the cycle of rebirth."

* * *

It makes me laugh that I've chosen to update this story while it has 13 reviews. That seems a rather ominous omen, don't you think? OH THE IRONY! In any case, this chapter probably wouldn't have been written for a long time had I not realized how long it had been since I last updated. And it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be with the help of the Diamond Dust Rebellion soundtrack. Woot for muse-fed music. I also promised xTKx that I would update this fic this week, so I thought that it would be best to hold true to my promises. And low and behold, here it is! There are roughly going to be six more chapters in this fic, but they are going to be much, MUCH longer than the first three. I've just been choosing to be evil and leave you poor people with cliffhangers all over the place. Haha on you. There should be another thing you should note about this fic: though it is an IchiHitsu fic it is not going to contain any meaningless sex scenes. Nor will it include any true romance whatsoever until the last chapter, because unlike most writers I actually enjoy _building _the relationship between the characters before I have them snogging on public benches. Not that I would have them snogging on public benches anyway, but you get the idea. Next up in news is the updated pairing vote for fic number two in this series. Please give me input, because you guys will be the one deciding!

Shuuhei-Byakuya: 1

Shuuhei-Renji: 1

Shuuhei-Kensei: 1

Shuuhei-Ikkaku: 0

8-90s love,

crypto


	4. Bring on the Night

The future is but a question mark  
Hangs above my head, there in the dark

Sting: 'Bring on the Night'

A black sky wheeled above his head, silver stars swinging into a dizzying jumble of pallid streaks as the range of his vision shifted. In and out, focus came and went. Like the throbbing pain that left his chest trembling, and the dead sobs that lay buried there, everything seemed both still and struck with motion. Had he the stomach to wretch with, he surely would have. But there was nothing, just as much as there was everything. The pain was numb, the dizziness was calming, and the slow breath of the white desert rested around him like a dead weight.

He still hated Hueco Mundo, with every fiber of his questionable being. He'd had too many memories buried there, too many promises brought to death on those white dunes. Too much blood stained on that ever undulating mass of white sand to ever forgive its belying calmness.

He let out a slow breath, watching the silver clouds crush out the light of the moon as a rippling wind began to pick up. He closed his eyes, wishing that his dream would finally come to an end. He'd been lying there atop the crest of a white-tipped ridge for what felt like hours. He couldn't will himself to move; there was no incentive. He had no reason to go traipsing around the damnable desert, and no reason to think that he needed to. So he'd sat there, letting the white grains blow around him into drifts, slowly forming an encroaching tomb of pale little death.

God how he hated Hueco Mundo.

For a long time the only sound that greeted his ears was the slow hiss of moving sand around his head. The wind was even silent; only the movement it caused seemed to make noise. Probably because there was little in Hueco Mundo to disturb, save for the sand. Yes, in places there were cliffs and crags, dead forests and glens as bare as the bones they mimicked, but not here. Not in the deep deep desert where even the eye of Aizen had to strain to see. Out in the no-man's land, he waited.

Only when a faint howl of agony greeted his thirsty ears was he startled. He'd been so focused on listening, watching, trying to find _something_ to explain why he was there. And when it came to him, it seemed almost like too much of a convenient answer to be real. But he sat up regardless, his ears tuned away from the sand as it fell from his body like droplets of silver water. For as long a time he sat unanswered, and only when he had just begun to resign hope, a slightly louder howl greeted his waiting ears.

It was a horrible noise. A wet, rippling gurgle of primal agony that sounded over the dunes like a horn over a deep. But this noise only elicited one emotion from those whose ears lay listening, and it was a chilling twist of pity and remorse for whatever poor soul had made it.

After it sounded yet again, louder only vaguely as the source drew closer did he actually stand to his unsteady feet. He waited with aching senses, feeling the instincts rooted deep in the narrow places of his bones set into motion his unwitting feet. He was scrambling down the monstrous dunes, half buried and struggling as he tried to root himself out of the avalanche he'd caused. He needed to help, whatever it was that was in such great pain. That noise sang to the tune that every life he'd ever valued did; know me, love me, protect me. The sound bridged the three simple steps that led to his heart's very strings, and plucked at them with a strange harshness.

Before he knew it his once sluggishly plodding form had polished itself into a streaking run. His legs pumped hard over the churning sand as the wind kicked up, bringing whirlwinds of sand to bite against his face. He relinquished his care, realizing that for whatever reason, the horrible howl that echoed over the dunes reminded him of his previous dream. And though it heralded no relation to the other horrid noise he'd heard bellowed out over the dreamscape of Toshiro's inner world, it did carry with it that same importance of recognition. Of merely knowing what was there and what he needed to see was all purpose intended, and that was more than enough for him.

As he slowly churned his way towards the crest of the highest dune in his sight, he paused. He had heard not the loud bellow in quite some time, and had merely been following after where he had thought had been the direction from which it had been coming. He looked around, craning to find some sort of marker amongst the identical waves of white to tell him where he needed to go. And only when he saw some of the sand move over the crest of a dune not far away did he again begin to trek. It wasn't even true movement; just sand kicked up into the air by what he _assumed_ to be movement. But the gust of sand seemed so great that it was almost impossible for it not to have been caused by some manner of movement.

All but clawing at the pale grains of the ridge he was trying to crest, when at last he reached the top, he couldn't help but look down in confusion. He had been correct in his observation, that the amount of sand displaced had been caused by some moving force. And the impressions left in the sand of the opposite side of the dune certainly portrayed that. But for all that seemed to have been there, there was little more than a small white and red and black mass lying at the bottom of the depression.

And, had it not been for the repeated bellow of agony, now ringing painfully loud in his ears, he would have been sure that he had been mistaken. But so loud was the outcry that he had to cover his ears, feeling that he was standing next to the very mouth of whatever had made that noise. Through squinted eyes that struggled to focus over the noise, he looked back down at the small mass, recognizing with a start the shady symbol on what he realized to be the back of a very bloodied haori.

The vague 10 symbol glared back at him through his blurred vision, and he stumbled forward in an attempt to get closer, realizing that, somehow, he'd found Toshiro. But as the deafening sound died away, and he drew slowly nearer, he realized that, though it may have been Toshiro, it was not _all_ of Toshiro. If anything, as his vision cleared he realized that, though the now obvious image of the small captain was complete, it seemed to be anything but solid. Rather the small captain seemed to be made of a wavering haze, edges blurring in and out of focus regardless of Ichigo's ability to see.

He knelt down next to the small captain, making to reach out to him even as the poor suffering soul made to try and push himself up off the sands, which were slowly being dyed red beneath him. But his hands touched nothing, and he realized with a bite to his own tongue that this was but a dream. He watched in painful objectiveness as the young man struggled to even push his own shaking shoulders off the ground, his entire body marred with gaping wounds. His mouth opened in outcry, and Ichigo watches as his lips, split by some previous blow, formed into the silent words, "Help me." But the only sound that met his ears was that same, deafening, agonized roar.

He covered his ears again, doubling over as the sheer volume overwhelmed him. But as he stared down at the reddening sand, the familiar rippling in his vision began to claw at what he could see. His head whipped up, realizing that this dream too was quickly falling out of his grasp. Again he cursed himself, for wanting the dream to end and then just as suddenly wishing it wouldn't. He reached out again to the shady visage of the small captain, crying out the panicked phrase, "No!" again and again to whatever audience controlled his sleeping mind. But they gave him no favor, and tore the dream from him even as he continued to cry out in frustration and in fear, the foggy countenance of the captain still numb to his touch.

When he finally awoke, it was to a pair of strong hands shaking his shoulders. He flinched away, panicking momentarily as the loud denial "No!" escaped his lips one last pleading time. His auburn eyes looked around, realizing that he was exactly where he'd left himself; sleeping against the wall in what was now Toshiro's… or rather, Hyorinmaru's private room deep in the 4th Division Hospital.

Looking back to see who had woken him, he was unsurprised to find Captain Kyoraku crouched before him, the other man's large hands still planted firmly, reassuringly on his shoulders. He settled himself, but his breath remained short in his chest as his heart continued to thunder and clench. Once the drunkard captain seemed assured that Ichigo wasn't going to draw his sword to anyone's throat anytime soon, he removed his hands, standing slowly so as not to startle him.

Ichigo's eyes strayed to where Toshiro's body lay as he also stood. But he stood more slowly, a hand against the wall to steady himself. These nightmares were taking a toll on him, both mentally and physically. And the last thing he wanted was for Captain Unohana to deem him unfit for battle. Heaven knew he was the one who was going to go out there and find Toshiro, now that he'd been the one subjected to the tormenting dreams. And even if he wasn't functioning normally, that still wasn't going to stop him from trying to save his companion. Not even if Captain Unohana's wrath stood in his way, and that was truly a frightening concept indeed.

"You going to be alright there, son?" he heard the 8th Division Captain ask, but chose not to respond right away. He wanted to get his voice back first, for he realized that it was somewhere down in his feet, mingling with his cold toes in its hesitance to function.

"I really need to go find Toshiro," he said. "And I can't wait any longer for someone to figure this out." He looked at the other captain, knowing that his serious look would dispel any concerns regarding his sanity. "Or else there won't be anything left to salvage when we do find him."

Despite sensing the teen's seriousness, the older man merely shook his head. "I agree with you on that, but you have to realize Ichigo that plundering around blindly in the dark sooner will do little more for you had you waited. Besides, Soul Society is just starting to wake up. Before you know it the best and brightest minds will be right by your side, helping you reach your goal." The man tipped his straw hat to him as he made to leave with a dramatic whirl of his pink cloak. "You just have to be patient with them."

Ichigo sighed, knowing that even though the captain had a point, that the time bomb that was Toshiro's situation didn't have even milliseconds to waste on being patient. But as he thought, a vague question came to mind, and just before the Squad 8 Captain had the chance to fully escape, the substitute voiced his concerns.

"Speaking of best and brightest, why were you the one that came last night, Captain Kyoraku? Why not Ukitake? From what I've heard he seems to be the one with the biggest soft spot for Toshiro," he said, noting how the older man slowed in his retreat towards the door. Apparently, he had been expecting some question of the like to be brought up at some point. He was not to be disappointed.

"Believe it or not, the majority of us have a soft spot for our little captain," the flowery man responded quietly. He sounded as if he were spilling one of the Soul Society's darkest secrets… and perhaps he was. "But you're right." Two sets of brown eyes locked. "Juushiro does have the biggest soft spot for him. But he also has the greatest respect for him, in spite of what Captain Hitsugaya may feel at times. That's why Juushiro is taking care of Squad 10 right now, and taking the time to console his Lieutenant."

That at least seemed to make sense, even in Ichigo's mind. He knew that Ukitake, in spite of his normally grandfatherly behavior, held deep emotions for the people he cared for. And if he respected Toshiro as much as Kyoraku said he did, then Ukitake would have gladly stepped up to keep the small captain's division afloat while their captain lay incapacitated.

"That still doesn't explain why _you_ came." Ichigo wasn't going to let the older man get off that easily. Anything and everything relating to Toshiro's well being mattered at this point, and in spite of trusting the man's intentions, he had to make sure that they were what he thought they were. "You said that the majority of "us" have a soft spot for Toshiro. Does that "us" include you?"

The older man's smile was almost sad. "Indeed it does." The answer did not come as a surprise. "Even though I may not have the affection for him that Ukitake has, he and I do certainly share in our respect for him." The older man's typically playful eyes turned hard. "Captain Hitsugaya portrays all the traits that a good captain should have. Patience, ethics, diligence, and above all, he's willing to accept when he's made mistakes, and is willing to suffer the consequences of them graciously, and with humility. He's more of an adult than some of the other captains ever will be, especially that _bastard_ Kurotsuchi."

Ichigo blinked in surprise at the strength of the man's words. He'd never thought that the carefree captain could feel such apparent abhorrence towards another captain. Not that Ichigo could blame him, really. Kurotsuchi was twelve different flavors of bastard, with bastard filling in a bastard cone with bastard sprinkles on top. But the _last_ person he expected to hear that from was from Captain Kyoraku, who was often too lazy to say anything bad about anyone.

"_That's_ why I'm here," the 8th Squad Captain continued, drawing Ichigo out of his thoughts. "Because I am wholeheartedly for preserving one of the few young men out there that's _decent_ enough to be worth fighting for. And you'll find, Ichigo, that even those of us you least expect it from will say the same."

With that, the older captain did depart, taking the time to close the door gently behind him. Ichigo supposed that he was probably out to rally the rest of the necessary troops, as he probably should have been. But he was drawn like magnet back to Toshiro's bedside, where he sat down, a shaky hand fisting the white sheets beneath his fingers.

"I wish you could have heard that, Toshiro." He spoke down to the sleeping body like he expected it to answer. Even though, by the looks of it, neither Hyorinmaru nor Toshiro were going to answer anytime soon.

Sometime during the night Captain Unohana must have come in to check on Toshiro's body's status and found it worsened, for there were wires and tubes poking in and out of places that Ichigo could have sworn were unhindered the day before. Even the young captain's fevered face was half covered by an oxygen mask of some sort, and he watched in a half trance as the condensation of the boy's fevered breath washed on and off the plastic.

But probably most disconcerting of all was the fact that, for some reason, Captain Unohana had opted to cover over the young man's eyes. It was probably nothing more than a wet washcloth at first, meant to comfort an ailing fever. But it unnerved Ichigo, probably more than it should have. It felt as if that by covering up those eyes, which had changed shades so drastically of late, they were all of them _accepting_ whatever Toshiro's misguided fate was. And that was one pill the substitute refused to swallow.

Reaching up with careful fingers, he pried the now dry cloth off, setting it down on the small table next to the bed. Toshiro's pale eyebrows were tense, even in sleep, but even his struggling expression was far better than no expression at all. Ichigo would gladly suffer through the sight of him fighting than try to deal with the idea of him having given up.

Which, he realized with a pained smile, he _knew_ Toshiro would never do.

* * *

When Captain Unohana relayed the message to him that he was to attend the Captains' and Lieutenants' meeting later that morning, he wasn't entirely sure how to feel. Sure, physically he felt awful because every bone in his body was nigh close to breaking under the pressure he was putting on them NOT to go out look for the snowy captain. Oh, and sleep had been lax too, but that was less important. Mentally he was probably at the point of willingly making mountains out of molehills, or at least punching someone in the face for a bad vibe. His hands were getting jittery just thinking about it. Emotionally, he was distraught at the idea of there not being someone of at least a Captain's level within _spit's_ throw distance of Toshiro, so that was moot. So, in grand summary, he was ten levels _beyond_ "no" by the time she even finished asking.

But one glance and a comment from the 4th Squad Captain later, he was trailing after her heels like a kicked puppy.

He followed her without a word for the rest of the way, not caring to look up from the floor as he buried himself in the grave of his thoughts. He knew that a lot of people had probably tried to acknowledge him, and that he'd probably confused or hurt more than one by ignoring them completely. But there was too much going on, too much to think about and to act on for him to worry about it all too much.

Hell, if he thought about it, a captain lay _dying_ in the 4th, and he had the choice to be worried about that, or waving hello to a soul reaper he didn't know. The choice's best option was almost so obvious that he was tempted to hit himself.

Fortunately he didn't have time to, as they had arrived at the Captain Commander's grandeur meeting hall in less time than he'd expected or realized. The closer they got to the doors, the more soul reapers seemed to be gathered, he noted. And not just the captains and lieutenants; seated and unseated officers alike were gathered outside the hall, all looking confused, expectant, and strangely apprehensive. Ichigo didn't know hardly any of their faces, nor could he place any of their names save for those he had encountered frequently and exclusively.

But he realized with a start that, because they were particularly clustered around the recognizable forms of Matsumoto Rangiku and Juushiro Ukitake, they were more than likely the poor misguided souls of Toshiro's abandoned division. Instantly, his expression softened and his heart sank. He couldn't imagine what they must have been going through… they left for home at the end of the day yesterday with their captain seeming to be as he always had been. All had been right with the world as far as they were aware. But when they came back in the morning, they were met with only an empty desk and vague, if present at all, explanations as to why their captain lay incapacitated and unavailable by any means in the depths of the 4th Division.

Taking time to avoid eye contact with most everyone, he made his way into the hall on the coat tails of Captain Unohana, trying to hide himself from the questioning looks cast at him by the division members. He couldn't bear having to tell them the truth of what he'd seen. He could deal with two or three people he knew could be trusted, knew would be able to handle it. But he didn't know any of the members of Toshiro's division other than Rangiku, and highly doubted that they would take well the news that their beloved captain was dying. And especially not the idea that none of them were strong or powerful enough to do anything about it, considering how much loyalty ran in the squads in relation to their captains.

And, to be quite honest with himself, he was still an outsider. He may have won their trust through many trials, but he knew that many of the Soul Reapers still viewed him with mixed opinions. And even though he wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, he couldn't predict where the feather would fall under such strained circumstances. So as he watched the men and women slowly filter in from outside and into the inner chamber, he tried to keep his calm façade strong. The fact that he was there may have mattered and it may not have; he couldn't be sure just yet, not knowing what news had been spread and what hadn't. And for once in a very long time, _the_ Ichigo Kurosaki chose to keep his loud mouth shut until he knew it was safe.

When Yamamoto's bellowing voice echoed through the large chamber, all of the idle chatter died away into attentive silence. The two lines of men and women stood waiting in front of all the rest. The captains all wore expressionless faces before the underlings of the 10th Squad, and Ichigo wondered if there was any reason as to why. But as all eyes locked on the Captain Commander, he decided to wait and see. In spite of the man's rank, however, Ichigo had never liked him. He may have been a strong warrior, and a good leader at times, but the man jumped to far too many conclusions for his particular liking. And a deep dread was pitted in his stomach at the thought of him jumping to conclusions yet again, just as he had done during the incident with Kusaka.

The memory of hearing Toshiro's execution order still sent shivers down his spine.

"It has come to our attention that Squad 10 Captain Hitsugaya has fallen ill," the elderly man started, his booming voice loud enough to make Ichigo flinch. Really, did the man need to talk that loud? It wasn't like they _weren't _going to hear him. But what made Ichigo's brows knit together was the seemingly… calm, visage that the Head Captain seemed to be harboring. It made Ichigo wonder just what had been going on in the wee hours of the night, and what misconceptions had been birthed in the wake of his arrival. "During the time he is under the care of 4th Division Captain Unohana, it has been determined that he is to be quarantined for the safety of the rest of the Soul Society. Until his condition has been contained and stabilized, Squad 10 will be lead by Lieutenant Rangiku, with assistance and supervision from Squad 13 Captain Ukitake."

A hushed uproar spread across the room. No one was particularly perturbed by the idea of being lead by their Lieutenant or Captain Ukitake, but it seemed that everyone, including a few of the captains based on the stories in their eyes, was dissatisfied with the explanation the Head Captain had provided. Ichigo didn't blame them; if he was in their position he'd be bitching up a storm right about now. But as he stood from his knowledgeable standpoint, he understood where the Head Captain was going with his charade. If everyone and their dog knew about Toshiro's condition, it would cause immediate mass hysteria throughout the entire Soul Society. And after such damaging blows from Aizen, and another one potentially at hand, they couldn't afford to have everyone losing their heads.

So as much as he hated the fact that the Head Captain saw it fit to flat-faced _lie_ to everyone, he did, albeit grudgingly, understand why. And, if it meant being able to protect Toshiro just that little bit more, he supposed he could deal with it.

When he heard the old man's cane snap hard against the floor, he returned his attention. As did everyone else, he noted, the sudden silence draping itself over the room once more. He could see out of the corners of his eyes the displeased frowns of the lower ranking division members, present in spite of their silence. He supposed then that the age-old idiom was wrong, that silence was equivalent to consent. If anything, it was strongly disproven by the rippling tension in the air, and it had nothing to do with mal-controlled spiritual pressure.

"Until such a time you are to return to your squads and carry on with all duties as indicated. All of you will be kept informed on important changes in Captain Hitsugaya's condition, and I can assure you that he will be returned to his post as soon as his condition has been remedied. All of you are thus dismissed. It is asked, however, that the Captains and Lieutenants remain behind." With that the vast majority of the assembled crowd began to trickle out of the large room. And from what Ichigo could tell, some of them had been comforted by what the old man had promised. They were all of them under the assumption that the "important changes" in Toshiro's condition would be real, just like the "illness" that he was suffering under. Ichigo's jaw clenched. The old buzzard might as well have been lying to lost children, and promising more lies as a vague attempt at comfort.

When all the lower ranking officers had left, save for Ichigo, because he assumed that it was kind of pertinent for him to be there, the grandiose doors closed once more. The resounding thud echoed loudly through the silenced room.

For a long time no one spoke, and Ichigo noticed vaguely that instead of the assumed number of four missing captains, that there were only three empty spaces in the lineup, not including the twelve lieutenants who stood behind their captains, or the spaces where their captains should have been. There was one space that was filled only by one person, and Ichigo realized that the man standing where a captain should have been wore no haori. Thus, he was not a captain, and could be assumed a lieutenant. But he stood naturally, his shoulders set and his head held high, obviously indicating the fact that he was where he was supposed to be.

Apparently having sensed his confusion, Lieutenant Isane, who had taken up stance beside him when they'd come in to stand behind her captain, leaned down and whispered in his ear. "The man over there is Hisagi Shuuhei, Acting Captain of Squad 9. He's the only one out of the three abandoned lieutenants that's been able to keep it together well enough to assume his captain's place. Most of his squad members agree that he's a better captain than Tousen was anyway." With that she straightened back up, glancing apologetically at her captain as the older woman glanced over her shoulder at the two of them. Unohana wasn't angry, just curious from what Ichigo could tell. But, then again, it was often hard to tell with that captain in particular, so he decided to not elaborate on his cause.

But the fact remained that, even though he knew Shuuhei only vaguely through help of Renji, he couldn't help but automatically agree.

"Now," the Head Captain began again, finally drawing everyone out of their pregnant silences, "as some of you may not be aware of the current situation, let me elaborate a bit more clearly on this matter. It is true that Captain Hitsugaya is incapacitated at the moment, and for causes that for now remain unknown."

'_Aizen would be one_,' Ichigo thought to himself with a scowl.

"His condition was discovered late last night when the Substitute Soul Reaper, Ichigo Kurosaki, made an unannounced visit to Captain Hitsugaya's office. It has been explained that his entire reason for coming so early in the morning was because of a vision he had regarding Captain Hitsugaya's health. It appears that his assumption was proven correct, as it was shortly after determined by Captain Unohana that Captain Hitsugaya's condition was far beyond normal."

'_That's because his soul has been ripped out of his body._'

"With that having been established, Captain Unohana has begun to investigate exactly why Captain Hitsugaya's condition is what it is, and how to remedy it. Captain Kyoraku, along with the help of Captain Ukitake, has been gathering information to try and determine when exactly Captain Hitsugaya's condition changed so that we may properly gauge his condition's development."

'_Degradation would be a better word. Have you seen him lately?'_

"Until such a time that the rest of your services are needed, you are all thus dismissed. Please take into consideration that any and all information that may be related to this subject may be of grave importance. If you know of anything, and instance or an observation, that may relate to this, please inform myself or Captain Unohana of it immediately. Now, return to your squads."

"_Well at least… wait, what?_' Ichigo's jaw just about hit the floor. The old man was just going to leave it like that? He was going to let Toshiro rot away on his deathbed while they went rooting around for "evidence"? This had to be some kind of horrible, horrible joke!

"What the hell do you mean?" he blurted out, just as the Captains and Lieutenants were about to disperse. They all stopped, most of them mid-stride to stare at him. The Captains were less surprised, but most of the Lieutenants seemed flabbergasted. He didn't care. This mattered. "You can't tell me that you're just going to piss around dusting doorways until you find something! If you want to know what the hell happened to Toshiro, we had damn well better go out and find the part of his soul that's missing like I told you!"

Where he had expected awed silence, there was suddenly a hushed commotion. The Captains were all looking at each other, confused and on the verge of irritation. The Lieutenants looked blown away, looking to each other for help to explain what the berry had just said.

"Head Captain," the chilling slimy voice of the Captain of Squad 12 slithered out amongst the commotion, "what does this little heathen mean?"

Ichigo whirled on the man, his face taut with rage. "Fuck you, Mayuri, you're evil anyway. And this "little heathen" means that he woke up at ungodly hours in the morning because he saw one of _your_ colleague's inner worlds burning. And surprise, surprise, guess what I find when I get here? That said captain's body is being inhabited by Hyorinmaru, and that his soul is somehow magically gone, and that something else is ravaging his inner world while Hyorinmaru isn't there." Wrenching his gaze from the deformed captain to the Head Captain himself, Ichigo continued, his scowl deepening. "So don't you dare tell me that three Captains snooping around his office for the next few weeks is going to save the part of him that's dying in Hueco Mundo as we speak."

It was then that the hushed silence fell over the room.

"Head Captain, is this true?" Ichigo turned to face the speaker, finding that the Captain of the 7th Division had been the one that had spoken. Ichigo didn't see the bestial captain very much, but had been told by many that his fearsome appearance belied his good-natured heart. More than anything, every time he caught sight of the tell-tale captain, he really just wanted to conjure up a milk bone and humor himself. But he didn't, mostly because he didn't want to carry around milk bones with him every time he went to the Soul Society, and he didn't want to insult the captain. But he was apprehensive, regardless of the rumors. He had heard just as frequently that Captain Komamura was devoutly devoted to Yamamoto, and that sometimes it almost came to a fault. If that held true, Ichigo could be stuck in deep mud.

"It has not yet been determined whether or not the Substitute Soul Reaper's report is factual," the old man answered after a drawn out moment of silence. Ichigo's scowl twisted with indignation, that quiet dread in his heart thundering through it now. After all he'd done for them, this was what he got? This doubt, this childish regard for his warnings, it was going to lead to a dead Captain before any of them could do anything about it. But when the older Soul Reaper continued, Ichigo's rage paused. "But it does appear that someone has purposefully tampered with the balance of Captain Hitsugaya's soul, and that he is very much in danger of being destroyed by the process."

Ichigo felt his face pale at the older man's choice of words. _Destroyed_? That was a new revelation, even to him. He knew that Toshiro was on the verge of dying, but being destroyed was something altogether different. It was then that he remembered what Captain Kyoraku had said the previous night; "-whoever did this is trying to find a way to permanently remove souls from the cycle of rebirth." Was that what Toshiro's fate added up to? Complete and utter annihilation? For some reason when the drunkard Captain had said it the night before, it hadn't seemed nearly so…

Final.

Still choking on the embodiment of his own fears, he barely noticed how the rest of the meeting hall had burst into raucous yelling. It may as well have been silent to his ears, save for that one word. _Destroyed_. He'd being trying so hard not to admit that that was what all of his night terrors added up to. He'd been trying so hard to keep hope, and keep his emotions from taking a hold of his heart… But he'd failed, and just as he was on the verge of crying out in anguish, he stopped.

The silence of the room around him had settled in, and he looked back up to the Captain Commander. All eyes in the room were locked on the bearded man, who, by Ichigo's guess, had silenced the hall with some manner of proclamation. He'd didn't particularly care what had been said, because every sign pointed to it being irrelevant to his causes at that point in time.

"I understand that all of you wish to assist in the rescue of Captain Hitsugaya," he began, his booming voice still grating hard against the Substitute's frayed nerves. "However, we cannot have any more Captains abandoning their posts recklessly. We need to approach this so that we are not left open for attack should a search party be formed."

Well, all doubts be damned. Apparently the old man _did_ have something relevant to say towards Ichigo's current interests. But, just as he'd predicted, they did little to actually _assist_ in the coming to fruition of said interests. Quite seriously, Ichigo was on the verge of hitting the man.

"Head Captain Yamamoto, may I make a recommendation?"

Ichigo's brightly adorned head snapped to look in surprise at the new speaker. _Byakuya_ had been the one to speak, against all possible odds. Ichigo couldn't imagine what on earth the Head of the Kuchiki family would want to do regarding the rescue of a fellow Captain, but he then supposed that he might have an idea. _"Because I am wholeheartedly for preserving one of the few young men out there that's decent enough to be worth fighting for. And you'll find, Ichigo, that even those of us you least expect it from will say the same."_ He couldn't help the barely-present smile that tugged at his lips then. If he wasn't entirely sure that the other man would have killed him, he would have lunged forward and hugged the icy Captain. But he did succeed in restraining himself, and merely waited to hear what the stoic Kuchiki had to say.

"Proceed, Captain Kuchiki."

Even with all eyes locked on him, Byakuya still managed to maintain his characteristically nihilistic façade. Ichigo would never know how he did it, staying so god damned blue all the time. But as the older Soul Reaper spoke, he paid rapt attention.

"Because we are already at a shortage for Captains, I believe that it is imperative that Captain Hitsugaya be restored to his post as quickly as possible. That being said, I propose that, upon the Substitute Soul Reaper's indication, that we send a reconnaissance team to Hueco Mundo in search of whatever it is Captain Hitsugaya's soul appears to be missing." The berry didn't miss the grateful look that Renji was casting at the back of the head of his Captain, and couldn't help but share in the sentiment. "However, I would recommend that only Lieutenant ranked officers proceed, so that some level of power assurance may be provided without robbing the already taxed squads of any more Captains."

A mental murmur of agreement seemed to settle over the room, and Ichigo watched as many of the remaining Captains and almost all of the Lieutenants nodded in agreement. For the first time in what felt to be years, his heart felt light. _Finally_, they were making progress. But with a bite to his own tongue and a slight bowing of his head, he couldn't help but hope that they wouldn't be too late.

Every grain of sand in the hourglass was equivalent to a drop of blood, and the more time they wasted, the more of Toshiro's blood would be spilled.

"Agreed," the bearded Captain bellowed out. "It has been decided. Ichigo Kurosaki, you will lead the reconnaissance team to Hueco Mundo. How you get there will be left to your own devices, but it is urged that you proceed swiftly. You may take two Lieutenants with you. Choose wisely. Until such a time that the team returns, with or without Captain Hitsugaya, all other Captains are to be stationed at battle-ready positions at all times. You are all dismissed."

With one glance at Renji, Ichigo already knew what half of his away-team would be. He waited as Renji asked permission from his Captain first, his grin widening a bit when Byakuya openly consented. When the other red head stood with him, he was startled when someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind.

He glanced over his shoulders, his line of sight immediately met with the generous helping of cleavage that was Lieutenant Matsumoto's chest. After digging his face out of her mammaries, he actually managed to look up at her. She was looking down at him with a strange expression of stern softness. Her eyes shook with emotion, and she had a hand on his shoulder that shook even as her grip remained firm. "Nothing you say will convince me that I can't come," she said, glancing back over her shoulder at Captain Ukitake, who stood but a short distance away.

His snowy head nodded in approval, indicating that he was more than willing to cover for her until she returned. Captain Kyoraku stood by his snowy haired companion, serving as support to cover their point. Ichigo didn't really object at all; he couldn't be sure who else to trust in a situation like theirs, and to be quite honest, Toshiro's own Lieutenant at that point put him more at peace than the thought of anybody else. But he knew that it would be hard on her Division, technically being leaderless until both their Captain and Lieutenant returned.

But, he figured that the sooner they got down to business, the sooner that would cease to be an issue.

"I don't think I could tell you no if I tried, Matsumoto," he said quietly, and her expression softened. Apparently the sentiments expressed in his own voice were enough to have her relate to his pain.

"How the hell are we going to get to Hueco Mundo, anyway?" Renji asked quietly, his voice still managing to be petulant as always. Ichigo glanced back at him, and for a moment the other Lieutenant looked nervous, as if afraid he'd said something wrong. But when Ichigo slowly began to smile, the unease seemed to die away.

"The same way I get anywhere. C'mon, guys, we're going to pay Urahara a little visit.

* * *

Okay, that seriously took longer than expected. And yet… it didn't. I wrote this in the span of about a week, which is impressive considering it's almost 7k words. That's a decently long chapter for me! And you know what's sad? I probably could have made it longer. But, I really don't think it would have done much for the plot movement in this chapter. I got all that I wanted to say said, so I think I'll just set this down and move onto the next chapter. But, as you might have guessed, the plot has actually arrived in this little story! I know, it certainly took its time rearing its ugly head, but you don't even know the half of it yet. Muahaha. Just you wait, my pretties, just you wait. Nyaha. Ahem. In any case, the poll for Fic2 in this series is still up, so please let me know in a review, and I'm also going to put a poll up on my profile as well. Feel free to vote there as well. At the end of this fic both review votes and profile-poll votes will be tallied and added together. Whichever pairing gets the most votes wins, and will thus be made into the primary plot of the next fic. So, needless to say, please give me feedback. Also, I am looking for someone to write me a set o 100 prompts, because I REALLY want to do a set of IchiHitsu drabbles, but am too lazy to think up my own prompts. If you want to give me some, I'd love you forever. 0w0

Shuuhei-Byakuya: I

Shuuhei-Renji: I

Shuuhei-Kensei: I

8-90's love,

crypto


	5. Inside

"I climb this tower inside my head  
A spiral stair above my bed  
I dream the stairs don't ask me why,  
I throw myself into the sky"

Sting: 'Inside'

"It's not that simple, Mr. Kurosaki."

Ichigo's fiery brows ticked in frustration. He'd drug himself from Toshiro's deathbed with all the self control he'd been able to wrangle up, hauled himself back to the World of the Living just to ask for the man's help and all he got was a flat-faced median statement? He knew that Urahara was a smart man. Smarter than even he himself had given the man credit for at one time. So he couldn't help but find it a bit odd that the man was claiming getting them to Hueco Mundo, which he had done before, wasn't as simple a process as it had once been.

Trying to calm himself down a bit, Ichigo held his tongue to keep from making an idiot of himself. Instead he just let out a slow breath before asking, "What do you mean by that, Urahara?"

"What I mean by that, Mr. Kurosaki," Urahara started, his hands clasped in his lap and his shoulders bent, "is that Hueco Mundo is undergoing temporal shifting at this time. This means that the cohesion between Hueco Mundo, The World of the Living, and the Soul Society is severely unstable. However, the bond between the World of the Living and the Soul Society has remained blissfully unaffected. For what reason that is, I do not know. What that means for you is that the Garganta I have, even though it is still functional, may no longer be a safe passageway between the World of the Living and Hueco Mundo."

Ichigo blinked for a few moments, sensing both his and Renji's confusion as they sat listening. Matsumoto seemed less confused, though why was beyond him. "So it's just Hueco Mundo being affected?" Renji tried to reiterate, thankfully voicing the same question that Ichigo had intended upon asking.

The former Squad 12 Captain nodded solemnly, and his expression portrayed that he was still trying to figure out what to say next. Ichigo could only guess that he was going to try and explain a bit more, but apparently he too was at a loss for words. Rangiku seemed to be the only one not dumbfounded by this, but the pain in her eyes spoke volumes. The way she saw it, this was probably some trickery of Aizen to keep them from getting to Hueco Mundo in time to save her Captain. But the answer didn't seem that simple to Ichigo. If Aizen was trying to keep them away, then he probably would have made sure to keep the passageways between all three worlds in chaos, so that no one could go anywhere without great risk.

It seemed almost… unlike him to leave his enemies loopholes. And Ichigo was sorely suspicious of it. "So, Urahara, just how dangerous would it be to try to travel through the Garganta at this point?"

With a short sigh, Urahara crossed his arms over his chest, head still bowed in thought. The brim of his hat shadowed his eyes, but his mouth was set into a grim frown. "The way to put it best is that, where once the tunnel would have remained generally still, now it would probably be fluctuating. Meaning the end portal would probably also be moving. And any contact with that inter-dimensional rift would spell immediate death, so… it would be like trying to dodge a kidou firing squad while running blind."

Well if didn't _that_ sound just like buckets of fun. Ichigo buried his fingers in his hair, tempted to rip it out from sheer frustration. But he resisted, instead just letting out a strangled growl. Releasing his hair as his scalp began to smart, he let out a very stiff sigh. He felt like someone had tied a whipcord around his ribcage in hopes of him never being able to catch his breath. It was working, much to his dismay.

"I'm going anyway," he growled out. He glanced over at where Renji and Rangiku sat staring at him with questioning eyes. "I'm not going to ask any of you to come with me. But I would ask that if you don't you at least stay here and wait for me until I come back."

Renji snorted loudly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like we'd let you go to Hueco Mundo by yourself. God, Ichigo, those dreams must have done a number on your head, because there's no way even your normal stupidity would have assumed we'd let you go alone." Had Ichigo the wiles to deal with Renji on an equal level at that moment, he would have probably hit the other, but was prevented from doing so as Rangiku joined in the argument.

"And besides," she said, her voice surprisingly soft as she spoke, "I've already lost Captain once, I'm not going to just sit back and watch again when I have the chance to do something about it. Please let us go with you, Ichigo."

The younger man nodded, looking over to Urahara. The man's fan hid his face now, but Ichigo could see the quick twinkle in the other man's shaded eyes that told him that the former Captain had been expecting as much. But there was still a glimmer of worry that made Ichigo want to re-solidify his resolve before he went off plundering into the nest of the enemy.

But just the thought of his last glance at Toshiro before he'd left was more than enough to remind him. His fears mended and smoothed into unwavering determination, and he stood as Urahara lifted the floor panel leading to his underground chasm without a word. Ichigo jumped down first, the wind rushing up past him as he jumped down. He landed heavily, his knees bowing. As much as he wanted to rush, he knew that he both could and could not afford to. He could afford to because the clock was already spinning against him, and the less time he spent waffling the less it would cost him later on. But he also knew that he couldn't afford to rush too terribly lest he miss something. There was a lot to absorb, between whatever expanses of Hueco Mundo lie between him and Toshiro.

And as he looked over his old training grounds, he let out a stiff sigh. He just had a feeling; a crawling twinge across his shoulders that promised change. He'd never really feared change; he had never been one to be intimidated by it, or felt the need to be intimidated by it. He knew the difference between what was resolute and what was variant, and knew how to value each as they were. But there were some things in his life, people like Toshiro, whom he had not yet had the chance to determine which category they belonged in. He'd known Toshiro for a time, yes, but not enough to determine whatever fate mattered to him.

With a short sigh, though, he realized that he'd already made that decision a long time ago. He'd made the resolution permanent the day he'd come upon the short Captain, lying alone and wounded by the side of the road, with his entire world turned against him. There was no denying that a choice had been made back then, but he hadn't quite realized the gravity of it until now, where it lay cause-heavy on each and every one of his actions.

When the last of his small vagabond group descended, Ichigo knew that it was time. Urahara stepped forth, setting about in his strange and eccentric ways until at last the Garganta split open the air in the underground chamber with a cacophonous rip. Once again Ichigo stood look up at the man as he sat on his pedestal, looking more like a glorified owl than a man as he sat peering down at them. His eyes gleamed under the shadow of his hat, and he spoke quietly down to them as the portal sat undulating wildly against itself. "Now, Ichigo, I have made some modifications since last you used this portal. Obviously I have not been able to make any to ensure you safe passage, but there is one trait that I think you will find useful. I have mechanized a return portal that will automatically open up after a certain amount of time."

The all looked at him, rather confused as to what it would mean for them other than being able to get out of Hueco Mundo when the time came. The veiled genius seemed to understand their concerns, and spoke again in an attempt to nullify them. "What this means is that every hour until all three of you return, the Garganta will open to allow you to come back into this chamber. However, because the cohesion between the two worlds is shifting, it is likely that the location of the exit will change each hour. However, I have predicted from my data that the location will never be anywhere deviating from a general area of about five square miles. This means that should you come upon the Garganta as it is closing at the end of the five minute period when it is open, you should be able to find the next one within a reasonable distance."

"I only see two problems with that," Ichigo said, his tone grave as Matsumoto and Renji both turned to look at him. They seemed to have been satisfied by Urahara's explanation, and Ichigo was as well for the most part. But, as it stood, one of the points looked over was a rather pivotal one.

"First off," Ichigo said, pointing to the former Captain, "what's to keep Hollows from going through that Garganta and coming here? If it's just an open door, someone's going to go through it before we get back."

The man's scruffy face turned up into a devilish little grin, and Ichigo knew that the man had prepared for this as well. "If you remember correctly, Mr. Kurosaki, every employee that lives under this roof has more than enough spiritual competence to take care of any lower level hollows. And as far as I know, none of them would object to some practice. So, I would not recommend that you worry to deeply about that. Focus on the matter at hand, and not the one out of your grasp to control."

Ichigo snorted, shaking his head. It figured; it really did. He shouldn't have expected any less from the man whose eyes had seen through even the deepest opacity the world had to offer. "Yeah, well I still have one more issue with your explanation," he continued, holding the other man's grey-eyed gaze as his fist clenched at his side. He could tell from the other's raised eyebrows that he was just waiting for an explanation, so he gave one.

"There will be _four_ of us coming back, not three."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Kurosaki," the shopkeeper said, waving a hand with a genteel smile painted itself onto his bristly lips. "But-"

"There _**will**_ be four." He glowered up at the man, his tone daring the other to argue. Surprisingly the wily man did not, and just settled to look down at the younger man from his estranged perch. He was smiling still, but with a bit less of his usual insincerity. Ichigo knew he'd made his point, and that the other had listened. But whether or not the other man believed him could only be determined by the man's own convoluted mind, which Ichigo did not have access to.

So, in favor of dawdling even more, he strode forward towards the dangerously gyrating Garganta, giving his on looking mentor one last sidelong glance before he dove in. Head first he plunged into the darkness, chills thrilling up and down his limbs that had nothing to do with temperature. He heard Renji and Rangiku follow him, but made no move to look back.

He had far too much to look for facing forward; and thus could not afford a second to waste on looking back.

Urahara had been absolutely correct about the Garganta being more dangerous. All through their perilous trek through the deep dark of the weaving connecting world, the three of them were forced to keep eyes trained on the flickering mass of space, as it would rush forward as if to crush them, only to retract and pull the space out from under their feet. Many times all three of them had come gut-wrenchingly close to falling into the pits of the endless dark, but each time they had saved themselves just in time.

And when at last the light at the far end of the tunnel appeared, the entire group could not have been more thankful. But, as Ichigo led in front, he realized that the peril had not yet passed from the connective world. The door was moving, and he had to run faster in an attempt to even catch up with it. Soon enough their entire vagabond group was running at full pace, loping along with leaping strides before they finally reached close enough to the portal to leap through it.

Soon enough the curling walls of the intermediary world tore down, revealing Hueco Mundo in all of its stretching glory. The portal had been up in the air when they'd jumped through, so Ichigo angled himself in preparation as they plummeted down onto the white sands below. But his eyes were not glued to the forthcoming ground, but rather to the distance, where the towering hall that was Las Noches lay. When he felt the ground draw up near, he braced his knees, moving so that he could shift the impact into a skipping halt down the side of a large dune. Rangiku and Renji landed behind him, though with less grace.

Staring back at them and trying to reach out with his spiritual pressure as far as his blunted senses could go, he tried to think of which way they wanted to go. From what evidence they'd been able to gather, all signs pointed to Las Noches, and that Aizen had Toshiro there rather than wandering about the dunes of Hueco Mundo. It made sense, but something deep in Ichigo's mind told him that going to Las Noches was equivalent to going south after having brought a compass. But Renji and Rangiku seemed convinced that Toshiro would be there, and so he settled himself on that idea.

After all, he'd nothing more to defend his own opinion with other than the fact that it was a vague feeling. Without speaking they set off, taking to the dunes quickly as they approached the white fortress. But with a bite to his own lip, Ichigo knew that his premonition needed to be solidified before he could go barking out that the others were wrong, and that Las Noches was nothing more than a breeding ground for their enemies, and a snake hole down which they would be lost forever.

Because even though he had the vague notion of Toshiro not being in the hallowed hall that served as Aizen's fortress, he also had the vague need to go and fulfill some unmet cause that lay within those halls. He knew that plundering the base of the enemy was reckless, and could get them all killed, but there was something in there he needed, and whether it was Toshiro himself or information on what had become of him, it didn't particularly matter. Both options led to the same end; the only difference between them being how much pain the younger man was saved from in the end.

"Ichigo." The young ginger drew himself out of his thoughts, looking over at the busty woman who had spoken to him. They ran side-by-side now, rather than one leading before the other. Their eyes met, and he could see the burning resolution in her eyes diluted by worry. Even though he was thankful for her being there, he was also concerned that her personal attachment to the situation would burden their progress.

Not that he had any room to talk however; getting lost in his own thoughts and strange dreams more often than Yachiru burst into sugar-fits. But he could also see the Lieutenant in her taking over, and that her authoritative position, though rarely used, did help quell her emotions. He, unfortunately, had no training with which to console himself, and so he was merely left to act on his impulses and hope they didn't lead his team, and the man he sought to save, to death.

"What do we intend to do?"

He wasn't sure he wanted to answer her question directly, so instead just focused on the bleached terrain beneath his feet. "I don't know whether or not Toshiro is in Las Noches or not," he admitted, and he felt some frustration roll off her. He knew that she wanted him to have a plan, that she wanted him to have everything ironed out and ready to go at a moment's notice. But he wasn't Toshiro, and he didn't work that way. "But it's the only place right now that we have to start. We can't just go wandering around Hueco Mundo trying to find him out in the sand somewhere. The best chance we have is to start in Hueco Mundo, gather what information we can, and move out from there. For all we know, he could still be in there."

"But he could also not be," Renji butted in, his voice lacking its bull-headed acumen in favor of actually reflecting his rank. "Not to be the bearer of bad news, but even if we do get information by going into Las Noches, what will it end up costing us? Time, energy, and the element of surprise are about all we have going for us at this point, and going in there will almost guarantee that we waste all three of those resources."

Ichigo stopped, and the three of them stood a-crest a large dune as he looked back at the two of them. Las Noches was nearer, and he felt it towering behind him like the mountains tower over the sea. "As much as this may be ironic to the both of you, Las Noches is the lesser of the two evils we're faced with." Renji quieted. "And if anyone knows what's happened to Toshiro, it's Aizen. And if there's anywhere that Aizen would be, it would be Las Noches." Neither of them were able to refute the logic of his statement, although he wished that they would have. He'd taken the lead on so many missions before this, had charged ahead fearlessly, but now…

This time was different, and he couldn't quite place a finger on why. He cared about Toshiro, yes. They were comrades, yes. By Ichigo's definition they were friends, yes. But something had changed the rules of the game when the visions of the other man's peril had entered his mind. The rules had changed when the step beyond arms-length friendship had been taken. The world had shifted when deep emotions had been mixed in, deeper than any platonic fortitude he'd felt for Rukia or Orihime. It went beyond any of that, but just how deep it delved, he couldn't determine until the outcome of this particular mission had been reached.

"Well," Rangiku said, and Ichigo realized that in spite of his thoughts, not but a moment of quiet had passed between the three of them. "I think that we should at least try to figure out which end of Las Noches to go bursting into before we get too close. Our best bet is to try places that we haven't already been." She glanced over to Renji, who nodded, scoping out the castle to see if he could recognize any of it.

"I know that we entered over there last time," the red-head said, pointing. "You can tell because the stone is whiter than the rest; meaning its been repaired recently. And I know for a fact that there's nothing over there that would be indicative of any manner of holding cell, if that's what's they've done with Captain Hitsugaya."

"Wait a minute," Ichigo said, looking over at Renji curiously. The other only seemed unamused by his curiosity. "Didn't you fight that pink-haired guy in there last time? I thought the chamber you fought in blocked out spiritual pressure or something like that."

"Yeah, but you obviously forgot that I also _destroyed_ it," Renji replied, a maniacal grin on his lips. Ichigo rolled his eyes, waving the other off.

"Okay, okay. The point is that we're pretty sure that nothing from that end can help us. So our best bet is to try the other side, and work our way in from there. If anything, we can just work our way over to the other side and get out where the repairs haven't been finished yet. But no matter what happens, we _cannot_ split up. Even if we get inside the dome, need to stick together. I guarantee that we'll all be screwed ten ways to Sunday if we don't."

"Because we're only screwed three ways to Sunday right now," Renji grumbled, earning himself a swift and crushing punch in the side from Matsumoto. The man crumpled almost completely in half, a strangled "sorry" about the only thing he could say in his own defense.

"Let's get moving." Matsumoto started off again, the rare authoritative tone in her voice letting Ichigo know that she agreed with his statements. He followed after her, only waiting a few seconds until Renji got back onto his feet before following after the woman in earnest. He was tempted to use shunpo just to make the trek go faster, but shunpo required energy. And he didn't know if he'd need said energy for fighting, or even for more traipsing around the desert. So, he decided to just keep his legs pumping as they slowly rounded on the pearly fortress.

When they were probably only a couple hundred yards away from their wall of choice, Renji swore colorfully. Ichigo glanced back at him, finding his glance glued to some far off turret. Ichigo then looked up also, nearly skidding to a halt at who he saw. From such a great distance, it could have been very difficult to decipher one Espada's physique from the next, but the shock of blue hair was more than enough to let Ichigo know just who it was that was watching them.

At that point, he also colorfully swore, and picked up his pace so he was leading in front of Matsumoto. "What's wrong?" she asked, having been too busy focusing on navigating them to have seen their spectator. "What did you see?"

"We have company," Renji answered, drawing out his zanpakuto. Ichigo could tell that in spite of his hesitance, Renji was actually itching for a fight. He was a former member of Squad 11, after all; it was a part of him. But Ichigo could also tell that Rangiku was in no such mood. Her mind was set on retrieving her Captain, but Ichigo knew that could also be used to their advantage. Rangiku's focus meant that if anything got in her way, she'd gladly slay it in order to reach her goal. "It's an Espada."

Rangiku's skeptical expression sobered quickly, and her hand strayed to the hilt of her own Zanpakuto. She didn't draw it as Renji had, focused on covering as much distance as they could before the onslaught arrived. Ichigo didn't even reach for Zangetsu yet, knowing that though he could run and shunpo with the heavy sword in hand with little difficulty, he could not do it for very long. And, much like Matsumoto, his focus was on retrieving Toshiro. And that meant not wasting the energy on lesser fights if he had the choice of doing so.

When at last the wall drew near enough, Ichigo spared a glance over his shoulder, spying that the blur of blue that had not a moment ago been perched on a far off turret was now closing in behind them over the dunes. He clenched his teeth, knowing that they still had time to raze the wall if they hurried, but that said window of fleeting opportunity was slamming closed rather quickly.

Finally unsheathing his sword he howled out Zangetsu's name, sending a wall of blue energy rippling from the blade's pointed tip. The energy flared furiously, bombarding the towering white wall with threshing force as his haste was relayed through the strike. The wall of stone bellowed back as the strike tore through it, complaining crashes of falling stone following in the wake of the still moving blow as it tore into the empty space beyond. Their opening successfully made, he glanced back at Matsumoto and Renji. Matsumoto was practically on her way through the opening by the time he looked, but Renji was holding his ground, his fingers tapping over Zabimaru's glinting blade as if he had an incurable itch.

"Renji!" Ichigo bellowed out, allowing Matsumoto to forge ahead to the opening he'd blown. The redhead turned back at him, a foul expression on his sharp face that relayed his displeasure at not being able to stand and fight like a man. Ichigo knew it was hard, but also knew that they had more important things to tend to than a purposeless fight. If it came to the need for a fight later on, then Ichigo would let Renji have his way. But for now, they hadn't the time. "Come on, we don't have time to mess around!"

The other grunted, but followed after him as he dove into the gaping hole. He skidded to a halt a short distance behind Matsumoto, who had stood waiting for them. But now that the crawling halls of Las Noches were opened to their digressions, Ichigo had no idea where to start looking. He turned to the two, almost feeling the 6th Espada's breath down his neck as they stood all but waiting for him to catch up. "Come on, we have to get moving. It doesn't matter what direction we go in as long as we get somewhere. Which way do we want to go?"

"Left," Matsumoto immediately answered, and Ichigo only nodded as they began moving before she could even explain her rationale. "There are fewer strong spiritual pressures that way. And even though that may mean that we may not find the Captain right away, it does mean that we're more likely to survive long enough to find him."

Ichigo didn't contend her, and neither did Renji. They merely ran along the corridor, all of them trying to clamp down on their own spiritual pressures to go undetected for as long as possible. As they rounded the corner away from the compromised hallway, Ichigo looked back. Grimmjow hadn't yet arrived at their impromptu entrance, which meant that unless he had some kind of psychic ability of smell, then he too would have to guess which way they went. Ichigo could only pray to whatever God ruled over Aizen in Hueco Mundo that Grimmjow would guess wrong. They couldn't afford to have him guess right.

Matsumoto led in front, traipsing them down narrow passageways and dark corridors as they scoured the building for any sign as to where they needed to be. They skirted along the outside of the building first, slowing working in towards its heart as the sand in the hourglass fell. Ichigo's heart was still racing, and in no time at all he felt like he'd been running for hours, even though his strained mind was probably misinterpreting seconds for minutes and minutes for hours. But that did not change the ominous feeling of foreboding that wandering around aimlessly in the base of the enemy gave him, nor did it make his insistence any less urgent at wasting as little time as possible.

As they ducked down another hallway, they came to a T shaped junction, peeking out to stare down the left and right paths with a hint of indecision. They'd been following Rangiku's heightened sense of high spiritual pressures, but she now seemed frightened and unable to decide. Ichigo glanced at her worriedly, seeing that she had once more reached for her sword.

"There you are," an oily voice slithered through the hallway, and a rush of goosebumps wound up his skin. He turned, facing the familiar spoon-shaped hood of the fifth Espada, his one eye gleaming in the light of the wider walkway. Ichigo's hand strayed to Zangetsu's hilt, biting his own tongue to keep from doing or saying anything particularly rash. "Been waitin' for you little _rats_ to turn this corner."

"Fuck off, Nnoitra, I found them first you lazy bastard," another voice bit back before any of their small party could reply. Ichigo swore in his head, and was almost positive that he did out loud as well. He glanced over to find Grimmjow yet again on their tails, his maniacal face twisted in anger at his fellow Espada. But there was a glinting malice beneath that angered visage that Ichigo easily recognized as Grimmjow's insatiable thirst for blood, and the thrill of the gore that came with it. He took a step back, and knew that Rangiku and Renji had already drawn their swords from the singing of waiting steel around his ears.

"What, just because I had the thought to know when to fuckin' corner them doesn't mean that you get them all to your lonesome!" The raven haired Espada lowered his one-eyed glare on the other, and a thought struck Ichigo as the two of them continued to bicker, stepping closer and closer to each other as their argument escalated over who would get to rile with them.

And, without a word to either offensive parties, Ichigo turned tail and ran back down the passage they had just come from. Dragging Rangiku and Renji by their sleeves, the caught on quickly to his tactic, and he quickly let them go as they sought out a different route. But Ichigo's heart pounded in his chest, and he strained a sparing glance over his shoulder to see that the fifth and sixth Espada had apparently settled their differences temporarily in favor of pursuing their collective quarry.

Ichigo whipped his head back around, seeing that Renji and Matsumoto had forged ahead of him, and he surged forward to keep up. As much as he would have loved to turn and fight, the thoughts screaming in the back of his head told him that they were all running out of time, and that battle was not an option he had if he wanted to come out successful in any way, shape, or form. After another eon-long minute of frantically trying to shake their pursuers, Ichigo glanced back over his shoulder as they came to a long, straight passageway where he could afford to look without running into anything.

But, much to his surprise, both Grimmjow and Nnoitra had stopped before they'd entered the long corridor, scowls on their faces a mile wide as they glowered after the small retreating team. Ichigo's brows knitted in confusion, and he turned back to ask Renji and Rangiku what the cause might have been. But in the split second that he looked back, several lightning-fast details of his surroundings flew past him.

First off, a wall slammed down behind them, separating them from where Grimmjow and Nnoitra had failed to tread. The barrier thundered down, sending shockwaves across the floor. Ichigo failed to stop running, and sprinted past both Rangiku and Renji as the both skidded to a stop to see what had happened. But as they saw the wall crashing down, the floor beneath their feet folded downward, swallowing the two members of his team into a pit of black. Ichigo made to rush forward in a vain attempt at fishing them out, or following after them, but a bony hand latched around his bicep, locking him in place as the folded floor returned.

"Well, look what we have here, the little ryoka is back to cause more trouble, eh?"

Ichigo felt like a spider had crawled up his back at the sound of the former Captain's voice, and he froze with a painfully jarring stillness. Slowly, his head curled around, looking at the fox-like face of the former Squad 3 Captain that grinned pleasantly back at him. Despite the man's permanently nonchalant demeanor, Ichigo still felt like the silver-haired traitor was teetering on the brink of deciding whether or not to gut him.

"What's the matter?" the other man said, his grin curling at the edges like a burning photograph. "Cat got your tongue?"

In a flurry of panic Ichigo wrenched his arm away, staring down the other as his hands reached for Zangetsu's square hilt. He didn't draw, seeing as the other man had saved him in a way. But without backup he still had every reason to be on edge, and so he maintained a guarded stance. "What the hell are you doing here?" he ground out.

A snorting chuckle was what answered him first. "I should be the one askin' you that," Ichimaru said slowly. "Seein' as you're the one intruding onto our turf." But the silver-haired man paused, stepping in a slow, almost circling motion only to tilt his face in as a condescending sneer wound his lips. "But I think I already know who you're here after."

Ichigo drew his sword then, the bandages guarding the blade uncurling as he lowered the hefty blade at the man, though the distance between them was still substantial. "Where are Matsumoto and Renji?" he demanded, his stance shifting into a forward opposition.

"Don't worry, little ryoka, where they are is part of the explanation." There was a teasing lilt to the other man's voice, but also a heavy darkness in it that made Ichigo pause for a moment. He lowered his sword a fraction of a hair, looking at the other man with a keen glance. What the other meant by that he wasn't entirely sure, but he knew that it had to be important if the cynical fox had interfered in their hunting down. If he meddled in anything it meant that he had a personal stake in it, and though Ichigo knew he and Rangiku had once had some sort of relation, he doubted that that was all the other man had come for.

"What explanation are you talking about?" he questioned, but the other man didn't answer right away, instead just offering another wraith-like laugh.

"The explanation to the one question you haven't asked yet."

Cogs turning, Ichigo's mind roiled as it tried to catch up to what the other's words were implying. And when the answer hit him, it hit him so hard that he thought he would topple over from the sheer force of his own stupidity. But with renewed fire in his eyes he stared down the former Captain, unafraid as he shifted his stance out of opposition and back into defense. "Where's Toshiro?"

"There you go," the satirical man sneered. "I knew that's what you came here for." Ichigo stared at the other man incredulously, unable to comprehend the man's forethought on their arrival. "After all," Gin started again, his tone growing a bit more serious as his omnipresent smile seemed to fade a little, "he's the same reason why _I_ had to get to ya before those two hooligans did."

Despite the rather downtrodden wilt to his face, Ichigo still didn't trust the other as far as he could throw him. He gripped Zangetsu tighter, knowing that the man was about as trustworthy as a snake you couldn't see. "Did Aizen send you?" he asked darkly, knowing that anything and everything that went on under the domed roof towering over both of their heads did not go unseen by the godlike figure.

Ichimaru paused for a moment, straightening up from his lurking slouch to stand like an actual man. He was taller than Ichigo expected, a good hand or two taller than him. But with the way the man slouched around it made him appear smaller than he actually was. "No," he said, all traces of his smile gone, and the teasing tilt to his voice flattened out into a serious tone. Ichigo started in surprise, having never known the man to be even capable of showing some manner of seriousness towards anything. If he meant what he said, it could mean one of many, many things.

The first was that he was willing to put his audacious loyalty to Aizen aside in order to feed his own motives for once. The second was that it had all been his doing in the first place, which would mean that his errand was to eradicate Ichigo and their team rather than assist them. From there the list of options dragged out for miles, each option more applicable than the next. But Ichigo dropped the attempt to uncover the meaning of the other's words himself. He would get nowhere if he didn't get the facts straight from the horse's mouth.

"Then I'll ask you again," Ichigo said, his voice tight, "why the _hell_ are you here?"

Gin was silent for a moment before he did something that Ichigo would never have expected. The fox-faced man opened his eyes, until they were staring eye to eye. Ichigo was stunned into silence, his mouth clamping closed as he stared into those veiled teal eyes. It struck him then that Gin and Toshiro had more in common than he'd thought, because the only place he'd ever seen eyes so brightly teal before was on the man he currently sought to rescue. But Ichimaru's were a sharp shade of Caribbean teal, rather than Toshiro's deep rolling, Pacific teal.

"I'm here on behalf of the person you're looking for," the silver-haired man said after a long while. Ichigo blinked, not realizing that he'd failed to do so in the past several minutes. "Because every once in a while I'm struck by this horrible thing called a conscience, and every even rarer so often I actually listen to it." Ichigo couldn't help his gaping as the man spoke. Every hint of his teasing, lilt of an obscure accent was gone in favor of him actually being serious. And Ichigo didn't know if he should be thankful for the change or frightened of it. Because he couldn't comfortably picture Gin Ichimaru being wholeheartedly serious and not in some kind of anger-induced tizzy at the same time. The fact that he was now only further served to disturb that imagined image.

"I know you're here looking for Captain Hitsugaya," Gin continued, drawing Ichigo out of his own whirling thoughts. "And I can tell you with all blatant honesty and regret that he is no longer here."

"What?" Ichigo barked, on the verge of getting hysterical with all of the complex messages being shoved into his brain. "But… wait." A thought on the man's use of words made him pause for a moment and narrow his eyes at the taller Soul Reaper. "That means that he _was_ here at one point, doesn't it?" The gray fox did not answer. Ichigo growled to himself, barking out at the other man in a demanding voice, "Then tell me, where is he now? Tell me what you mean when you say he isn't here anymore, because there are several connotations to that statement; none of which I'm particularly fond of right now."

"I mean that Captain Hitsugaya is no longer within the confines of this building." Gin folded his hands into his sleeves. "Do not misconstrue my statement to mean that he has ceased to exist entirely, or that he has gone from this world." An almost sad shadow passed across the other's eyes for a moment, and if Ichigo had not watched carefully every millisecond of its presence he would not have believed it to have been there at all. "I wish that he were capable of leaving this world, little ryoka, believe me. It would be far better a fate to suffer than what he is toiling through now."

"And why should I believe you?" Ichimaru seemed surprised at the statement, apparently not having expected defiance. "You've given me no reason whatsoever to trust anything you say. So I'm equally sorry to say that I have no intention of doing so."

The older man chuckled weakly for a moment, shaking his head. Then, after a moment, he looked back up, once again as serious as a mourner standing alone at a fresh grave. "You should believe me, Ichigo Kurosaki," he started quietly, "because I would like to see Captain Hitsugaya saved from this fate just as much as you."

"Why?" Ichigo asked just as quietly, knowing that yelling at this point would no longer do him any good.

Ichimaru looked away, and Ichigo watched as his sharp eyes trailed around the room, as if remembering the things he'd seen transpire inside it. He turned back to Ichigo, though did not look at him in favor of looking at the floor. "Because," he said. "Give or take a few dozen years, it could have just as easily been me suffering this fate. And though I may not be the most wholesome man, I do have a heart for those I relate to." He looked back up at Ichigo then, his eyes hard with bitterness. "And believe me, little ryoka, there are few indeed whom I allow myself to relate to."

The young ginger paused for a moment, considering carefully the man's words. All of his body language pointed to his seriousness, but his own reputation for deceiving belied what could have been good intention. Ichigo took his word, but at an arm's length. "Fine," he said, noting the other man's unvoiced relief with wary eyes. "Suppose I believe you. Suppose you do want to save Toshiro. My only question is why didn't _you_, while you had the chance? Why wait for someone else to come and do it for you when you could have done it yourself?"

Gin faced the questioning without fear, and with every second that passed by, Ichigo began to realize that his sincerity was not an illusion; as it stood up to his prying time and again, spiting his trepidations each time. "Because I would not openly spit in the face of God, for fear of him." There was a pregnant pause, and a shadow of a hope of a grin passed over the man's face. "But I will gladly sin whence his back is turned in sheer spite of him. Had I tried to save him when he was here, I would have failed; and we both would have died in the end." Ichimaru looked back at him, his glinting teal eyes keen with a razor-sharp intelligence. "But I knew if I waited for the cavalry to arrive that I could make my move then; when all eyes were turned from the matter and my chances of success better than none."

"At the risk of the person you were trying to save," Ichigo bit back, but saw the man nod slowly.

"Better him to have a slim chance than no chance at all. Just think; if I'd made my move to save him earlier and failed, I would have been executed. And then, if you will, imagine your arrival to this place. Facing off against two Espada whilst racing the hands of the clock, with no way out and no idea where to go. You too would have died here; leaving the one you sought to save with no chance of surviving at all." Their eyes leveled again, but Ichigo did not shy away. The man was right, in a disgustingly damning sort of way. "It is as I said; better to give him a slim chance than none at all."

When the man reiterated Ichigo's situation on time, he again remembered that the hands on the clock were still spinning against him, and that even though in the long run this meeting would probably have saved him a great deal of time, at the current moment it had been dragging on for far too long. "Alright," Ichigo said once more, letting Zangetsu once again settle over his back. "I'll take your word for it, for now. I won't ask any more questions about why you're trying to help us; it'll only waste what little time we have."

Auburn met aqua in a steely battle of wits. "All I need to know from you now is what happened, and where we need to go to find Toshiro."

Aqua caved in at that last statement, wilting away to glance around the room, again as if reliving a painful memory. "Even I haven't the heart to tell you what's happened in this room," Gin said, facing away from him. "But I can tell you that the sooner you leave Las Noches the better off all of you will be. Captain Hitsugaya is no longer here; I've told you that. So there is no reason for you to linger here looking for the traces of what's befallen him."

"If you find him in time, he can tell you himself."

Ichigo was struck hard by the statement, but nodded resolutely. Gin seemed to sense this, and turned around once more to face him. He nodded towards the part of the floor that had folded away earlier, and Ichigo glanced back at it, making sure to keep one eye trained on the silver-haired traitor. "That trap door leads to a tunnel far under Las Noches," the former Captain explained. "Ms. Rangiku and Mr. Renji are probably at the bottom of it by now; trying to find some way back up to retrieve you. What they don't realize is that the tunnel they fell down leads to another passageway. That tunnel travels under the whole of Las Noches, buried at least eighty feet below the lowest floor. No one will hear you down there, nor will they sense any semblance of your spiritual pressure."

Ichigo was tempted to ask why such a passageway would even exist, but just as the words were about to pass from his lips a cacophonous explosion reverberated against the outside of the wall that had closed them in. Ichigo looked back at it nervously, realizing that someone on the outside must have caught on to Gin's plot, and was not all too pleased about the situation. Ichigo looked back to Gin, who seemed unafraid of whatever punishment lie ahead.

"After the panel closes behind you, no one will be able to follow," he assured, his eyes closing once more. But his grin remained absent, if only for a moment. "Take the passageway out from under Las Noches; it will lead you far out into the desert, where it would be difficult to pursue you in any rapid fashion. From there I can only recommend that you try and find where Captain Hitsugaya has gone as quickly as possible. In the condition he was in when he left, I would say he doesn't have long on his own."

Ichigo nodded, stepping away from the folding panel as he watched the black maw open up a short distance away. He then looked back to the former Captain one more time, noting that his greasy smile had returned. "Give my regards to Ms. Rangiku," he said, the teasing lilt back in his voice. But it dropped away with the second half of his statement. "And do your best to save our snowy little Captain; I couldn't ever picture the world without him."

Ichigo didn't even bother to nod; only turning back and jumping down the gaping hole in the floor without another word. He looked around the tunnel as he went, taking in what he could before the light faded above him as the panel reclosed. The tunnel was circular; falling downward in a perfect pillar, free of twists or turns. But he'd noticed that there was a distinct difference in the stone it had been hewn out of. In some places, it was as smooth as polished concrete, catching the light in a shining glint. But in other places, it was deeply scored and gouged by what appeared to be great claws.

But all that faded away as the light was shut out, leaving him with dozens of yards of darkness below him, and nothing but his own thoughts to follow him down.

He couldn't tell how long he'd been falling; his senses disoriented by the encompassing darkness and the utter lack of feeling save for the tug of gravity against his body as he reached terminal velocity. He would reach out every so often, his fingers searching in the dark just to make sure he wasn't about to crash into some wall. But his fall had proven a good one, in that he had jumped straight down the middle of the tunnel and had strayed nowhere near the walls.

After what felt like forever he felt like there was a foreboding rush of ground up to meet him. He looked down, squinting in vain in an attempt to see through the dark. All but from nowhere a flash of red burst forth from the darkness, illuminating his path for what looked like miles and inches all at the same time. The red beacon glimmered weakly, but against the pervading darkness it stood out in full colors, showing him the way down as the bottom rose up to meet him.

Through his now useful squint Ichigo could now see two figures whose shadows were cast upon the floor, their faces upturned to watch him descend. He smiled, glad that Renji and Rangiku had made it safely down, and that they had indeed waited for him in spite of what he still felt to be his grievous delay. Once again positioning himself for a force-abating roll, Ichigo touched down and let his gathered kinetic energy transfer to the ground as he tucked his body in expertly. He couldn't go breaking his own bones now, could he?

Once he'd come to a safe enough point to stand up again, he did so, turning to face Renji and Rangiku with a hopeful glimmer in his eyes. He had been clawing at his own skin all the time whilst dealing with Gin alone; it went against every principal they'd set up when they'd set out on this suicide mission. Renji's faintly glimmering kidou was all that they had to see, but Ichigo was thankful to be able to see them at all, lest he had not been able to see the bottom and broken every bone in his spiritual body.

"There you are!" Rangiku said, placing her hands on her hips as if indignant. "We were wondering what happened to you, leaving us behind like that. Care to explain?"

"Let's just say that an old friend of yours sends his regards," Ichigo said, walking past her and Renji to face the gaping horizontal tunnel that was their proclaimed escape route out of the hallowed building. "And instructions on how to get out of here alive and how to get Toshiro back. Come on; we've already wasted enough time. We can't afford to lose any more."

Renji followed after Ichigo without asking, and Rangiku did the same for a while. But soon she voiced the question that Ichigo had felt slowly digging through the air between the three of them. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell her, but he knew that he didn't have an option when it came to the blunt truth of the matter. She would find out eventually, anyway. One way or another.

"Ichigo, who are you talking about?" she asked, and he didn't look back as he delved headfirst into the dark, Renji's bobbing red light trailing after his heels. He could just barely make out what was ahead of him thanks to the small light, but knew he couldn't blaze too far ahead lest he lose them and his only source of light. "How do you know how to get out of here?"

"Ichimaru told me," he replied frankly, and sensed the shock explode off of his two battle compatriots. "But before you go asking me if I'm crazy," he said, biting back at them before they could properly refute him, "I know he wasn't lying. He wouldn't have let us go or separated us from Grimmjow and Nnoitra if he intended to just kill us himself."

"Don't be stupid, Ichigo!" Renji barked out at him, his kidou flaring a bit as his emotions did. "There's no way you could ever tell if that man was lying or telling the truth! He's a snake!"

Rangiku's pained wince did not go unseen to his eyes, so he stopped for a moment, turning around to face them as they all skidded to a halt. He looked at both of them evenly, sure beyond doubt that he was right in trusting the seemingly devious man. "I know he was telling the truth because he opened his eyes and looked at me when he told me," Ichigo said, and both sets of his companions' eyes widened at the statement. "And he stood up straight and told me like a man. If he can lie while doing that and not have me be able to tell, then he's worthy of tricking us."

A very wayward moment of quiet passed between the three of them, each of their own thoughts and emotions consuming whatever time they could allot to such things. Rangiku was the one to respond first, her light blue eyes, dyed a light lilac in the red light of Renji's kidou, boring down on Ichigo heavily. But he upheld their weight, defiant of being pinned down by his own nagging intuitions. "I believe you," she said, but the words were weighted heavily. "Let's get going, then. We can't afford to leave the Captain alone any longer."

Renji just opted not to respond, instead looking away with a snort, as if still not convinced but willing to agree for the sake of their mission. Ichigo was thankful, but merely went back to leading them on through the darkness rather than voicing such trivial things. The weight of the world pressed down on their little tunnel, compacting the air into a heavy haze of cold and damp that was almost unprecedented for an arid world like Hueco Mundo. And as they ran, along each dip of the long tunnel, Ichigo noted time and again where the tunnel beneath his feet seemed carved by long dragging strokes. Every so often he would catch himself glancing over his shoulder nervously, the childish fear of the dark and the deep personified by the hellish jaunt through the unknown, unforeseeable world of Hueco Mundo's depths.

Sooner than he'd expected another light began to pour over the darkened passageway, slowly turning the frigid black into a dimly warming gray, eventually grading up to a full scale, blinding white light as the end of the tunnel came into sight. The substitute increased his pace unknowingly, a full scale sprint carrying him far beyond the others in his will to be out of the place. He dashed out past the barrier of light, finding his vision cleared as he was greeted once more with Hueco Mundo's endless night, the silver light from the lonely stars and wheeling moon a far better alternative to the suffocating dark he'd just waded through.

Panting from his own primal exertion, Ichigo waited for the others to emerge as well. As he waited, his eyes craned around, scanning the horizon with every sense he had to see if he could detect any proof of a lie in the former Captain's words. Sure enough, no spire or stone of Las Noches could he see, nor could his blunted senses pick up any trace of foe or descending spiritual pressure for as far as he was willing to search. As it seemed, Ichimaru, the snake that he was, had been more than true to his words.

When at last Rangiku and Renji caught up, Ichigo glanced back at them, seeing on their faces the surprise at discovering the circumstances he had observed. Obviously neither of them had been expecting what could only by circumstance be called a positive outcome, but did not speak against it as they looked back to their impromptu leader. Both were on edge still, but neither on the verge of drawing their swords for fear of battle.

Looking back out at the sprawling dunes one more time, Ichigo spoke. "Look, I know that I said that we needed to stick together no matter what back in Las Noches, but…" He paused, swallowing the brazen words he was so tempted to say in favor of ones that would seem at least some semblance of logical. "That's not the case anymore, I don't think. If Ichimaru hasn't lied to us, then we can only assume that we have some time before the Espada or Arrancar pour out of Las Noches to come looking for us." He scanned all the eyes laid out before him for any sign of disapproval, and found none. "So now we have to use the time we have to cover as much ground as we can. And we can't do that if we're glued to each others' heels."

"I don't think it's wise, Ichigo," Matsumoto said sternly, obviously still weighing the benefits of sticking together over the risks to be taken traveling alone. "What if the Espada or Arrancar do show up and we're caught unawares? Alone we'd stand no chance, and who's to say that either of you could get to me in time if something should happen? It's just too high of a risk."

"No," Ichigo argued, beginning to get a bit desperate. "I know it's risky, Rangiku, but we have to do something. If we stick together then we might be defeating the purpose of us even coming here in the first place. We went to Las Noches to get information on where Toshiro is. Now we know he's somewhere out in this area of desert; that tunnel was the same one he went through to leave Las Noches. If we don't split up and cover as much distance as we can, then we might as well be trying to find a needle in a haystack without ever trying to move the hay out of the way. We _have_ to take the risk."

It was at that point that Renji finally decided to rejoin the conversation. "Look," he said, obviously not pleased with their indecision, "why don't we make a compromise then? Urahara said that the return portals to the shop open every hour, right? Well I don't know how long we've been here, or how long it will take the Arrancar to get here. But, if we look until we feel one of the portals open, or until the Arrancar come after us, then we decrease the risk of being caught alone. That way if something goes wrong, we can either get out or get to another member of the team before an enemy arrives."

The Substitute was pleased with the idea, but the other Lieutenant still seemed rather unsure. "Sounds good," Ichigo said, turning to Rangiku to add something that he hoped would seal the deal. "Then we'll make a deal. Regardless of when it shows up, we all make for the first portal back to Urahara's. I don't think the Arrancar will take an hour to find us, in which case we can't afford to wait for more than one portal to open. But this way, we're guaranteed to stay close so we could all get to the portal in time."

_That_ Rangiku seemed satisfied with. Pleased that they'd come to some semblance of an accord, Ichigo set off first, going straight out from the tunnel mouth, whereas Rangiku and Renji set off at forty-five degree increments to form a fan of search over the desert. Ichigo couldn't help his own haste, all but skipping from dune to dune as the distance between them grew. Soon enough he couldn't see either of their bobbing heads over the dunes, nor could his minimal sense track either of their presences.

Alone in the desert again, Ichigo still felt as if he was in a dream. Everything whirled past his eyes in a dizzying gradient of gray sand and black sky. But in spite of his own disillusion, his eyes remained keen, and his ears open for any sound of disturbance in the damningly silent desert. It was almost unnerving, that encompassing silence. It reminded him all too much of the fall through eternity down to the tunnel that they'd exited out of. And in spite of no longer being in an enclosed space, Ichigo still felt like he was caged in.

When his eyes continued to turn up nothing but winding sand, Ichigo succumbed to desperation. But rather than let his emotions consume him like others did, he stopped altogether, taking a deep breath as his mentally and physically taxed state complained against him. He looked over the dunes, this time, instead of trying to look over them and around them, actually look at them and what they could tell him.

He'd never been taught proper tracking techniques; what was he, a trapper? But he did know the fundamental signs of when things had been disturbed. Around the entrance of the tunnel, there had been no disturbance at all; not a surprise considering the sand had probably been shifted by wind during the time since Toshiro had exited. But as his gaze continued to wander, his prying senses still wary of his own horizon, he began to see faint as whisper patterns in the dunes.

Much like the path he was taking, small dips in the crests of the dunes began to appear, indicating that something had disturbed their naturally sharp crest. But the rounded, weathered state of those indentations made them appear old; perhaps some days, or hours depending on the mercy of the desert. But as Ichigo's eyes followed them, he noted how as the distance grew further away from the tunnel mouth, the more sharply accented and deep the grooves grew. Meaning, as the trail lead away, it also got progressively fresher.

Head reeling with his own discovery, Ichigo was thrown out of his own thoughts by the rippling feel of a portal opening behind him. He felt the space of Hueco Mundo scream in complained as the hole emerged, probably some few hundred yards behind where he stood. He knew that Rangiku and Renji would have felt it, and were probably far closer to it than he considering his haste.

He glanced back over at the sign's he'd stumbled across, biting at his own lip. For all he knew they could just as easily be some kind of hollow's tracks, luring him out to a battle he couldn't win, or a situation he couldn't escape from until Urahara's next portal opened an hour later. But resolve stuck him to where he was, defiance of surrender keeping him from turning back to retreat through Urahara's portal. The likelihood of them ever finding this chance-rich patch of desert again was impossible at best, and Ichigo wasn't fond of the idea of letting the young Captain suffer and die out in the desert when a few more sparing moments of risk could have saved him.

But what froze Ichigo's feet to the dune he stood atop was the faint whisper of a roar trickling on a gentle breeze that ghosted from the far horizon. The ginger whipped round, his eyes wide as they searched manically for the visible source of the sound. Without second thought he started once more in his search, moving away from the portal with all haste in spite of his promise. He knew that Rangiku and Renji would want to wait for him, but also knew at that point they were probably at grave risk of being caught up with, and would exit through the portal to wait where it was safe.

Cascading over mile after mile of trail marked dunes, Ichigo's brows set, and he clenched his jaw. He was going against a deal, but for the sake of Toshiro's life, he knew it was more than worth it.

Because there was not a soul in Heaven, Hell, Hueco Mundo, Soul Society, or the World of the Living that could tell him that the roaring he'd heard wasn't a dead-marked copy of the sounds he'd heard coming from Toshiro's mouth in his dream. And there was no soul in Heaven, Hell, Hueco Mundo, Soul Society, or the World of the Living, that was going to keep him from finding out whether or not he was right.

* * *

-GAWDTHISTOOKSOLONGTOWRITE. Ahem. Anyway. Yes, this chapter was almost excruciatingly long, but that was because a good majority of the character movement had to take place in it, and that meant a lot of probably not-so-fluid demi-action sequences. Don't worry, kiddies, there will be a full-blown fight sequence in RBF later on; just not in this chapter. Or the next one I don't think. Just to give you a heads up. Well, here's my last update for October, so I'm bidding you all a farewell for November, because I'm going on hiatus for ONE MONTH (I promise) in order to do NaNoWriMo. I WILL be back in December, I promise. Until then, you will just have to let the end of this chapter fester on your minds. Oh, also, I have somewhat modified my plans for the sequel to RBF; it has changed from potentially being a Shuuhei based fic, to a sequel, but still on the grounds of Ichi-Hitsu rather than changing the pairing. If you like this idea better, please go vote on the poll on my profile, or submit your votes in a review. (Meaning you could vote twice if you did both.) All votes will be tallied and posted below. After those that's all I have for now; have a happy Thanksgiving everybody, and I'll see you in Deccember. Here they are as they stand thus far:

Renji-Shuuhei: 6 votes

No Pairing (No fic): 2 votes

Ichi-Hitsu: 2 votes

Kensei-Shuuhei: 1 vote

Byakuya-Shuuhei: 1 vote

8-90s love,

crypto


	6. Children's Crusade

"Corpulent generals safe behind lines  
History's lessons drowned in red wine  
Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade."

Sting: 'Children's Crusade'

The miles that Ichigo traversed seemed in his mind to stretch on forever. He could have sworn that they did, and would have been sorely surprised and insulted if anyone had said he'd been imagining it all. But in all honesty he had no way to tell the passing of the time or the passage of miles, save for the tire and strife that built in accordance with each. If there was ever at all a way to do so, Ichigo would have killed to be in the company of such methods. But, sadly, he was not, and so instead he was left to his own devices against the shifting sands Hueco Mundo hoped to swallow him with.

But his hope was preserved, against all odds, because of all things he had signs leading his way for the first time in what felt to be forever. On this entire journey he felt as if he'd been tumbling around in the dark; plummeting into some swallowing unknown like the passageway he'd fallen through when exiting Las Noches. But now that uncertainty was gone, pushed away by solid evidence towards something other than his own intuition and convoluted dreams.

He'd been following the increasingly large indentations in the dunes he'd been traipsing over for a decent amount of time, but with each step he felt that he was actually getting somewhere. To be following actual tangible evidence was heartening, and so he set his unhappiness at being alone in the desert aside in order to focus on the task at hand. The cogs in his mind turning a million miles an hour as he carefully watched the trail signs go by, he began to wonder when he would actually stumble upon whoever or whatever had made them.

Because, at this point, the trail was one of blood splattering over the dunes, and he couldn't help but think that the poor wounded creature was close by, judging by how wet the blood still was. The slow gruesome trail had slowly been revealed from the sands, and Ichigo could only guess that the reason it had disappeared before was because the shifting sands of the desert had covered it over or moved it away by the time he'd reached the beginning of the trail. But now the blood was beginning to show in much more noticeable quantities, and was even getting to the dangerous point of being wet as it lay coagulating against the sand.

Ichigo skittered to a halt when a massive looming figure rose up from beyond the dunes, ducking behind the one he'd just been about to tromp over in favor of hiding behind it now. He looked in awe as the massive Hollow rose up, and he could only figure that a few dunes over there must have been some manner of substantial drop, because there was no way something so large could have hidden in the shallow dunes he'd been traipsing about for the past unknown segment of time.

But as he watched, his face paled, seeing that the Hollow that had risen from the dunes was holding the neck of another Hollow within its gruesome bony mandibles. The centipede-esque thing was snarling against the other Hollow it seemed to be trying to devour, as the poor creature being eaten struggled vainly. It was already pretty severely wounded from what Ichigo could see, which meant that it probably didn't stand much chance. His stomach turned, and even though he knew that this was how Hollows grew and became stronger, he couldn't help but find it disturbing and sick. Consuming another for the sake of empowering yourself, there was just something morbid inhuman about it. But then, he supposed, Hollows were a far cry from humans at best, so that was a bad thing to think in the first place.

But, much to his surprise as his spectatorship was honored, the smaller white hollow did fight back. The neck it had been being dragged up by twisted around, ramming a crowned head of spiny horns onto the body of the insect Hollow that had been trying to consume it. As the face twisted into view, Ichigo's entire body froze. A deafening roar had torn out from the wounded Hollow's bony maw, the chiseled face of the dragon swinging into his view.

It was the same roar that had come whispering over the dunes at him earlier, and it was the same exact roar from the dream that had rocked him before even that. His heart thundered, and he bolted forward without heed to what his brain was telling his body was a very stupid idea. But Zangetsu was firm in his grip, and he swung down with crushing force against the attacking Hollow's head. The bone mask of the centipede split easily, the mandibles finally letting go of the smaller creature that had been struggling to fight back. The segmented body dissolved from beneath him, leaving him empty air to fall through before he fell on the dragon-esque Hollow he'd been trying to save.

He was panicked for a moment that the dragon Hollow was going to whip around and try to consume him, and considering he really didn't have much reason to have protected the thing other than a vague association, it was a well founded fear. But the dragon didn't, instead, thundering down onto the dunes beneath it as its legs crumbled beneath it.

Ichigo landed rather unceremoniously on the dragon Hollow's armor plated side, sliding down it and back onto the sand. The monstrous dragon made no move to notice him, and he slowly prowled his way out from underneath the belly of the behemoth. Glancing at the Hollow, it was made rather apparent that the dragon had been facing similar problems before Ichigo had arrived. There were great tears and slashes littering its thick, plated armor. But it seemed strange to him, considering how many other Hollows he had seen in his lifetime. It may have looked the part of a Hollow at first glance, but there was just something… too aesthetic, almost, about how the armor plates settled together.

It looked like the body had been made in a lab, rather than formed out of pain and misery like all other Hollows were, and that fact alone was what was affirming Ichigo's impulses to save the creature. Striding around the slumped shoulders of the creature, its front legs tucked underneath it in an attempt to steady itself even whilst laying on its belly, Ichigo made to get closer to the face. He knew that, under normal circumstances, that probably could have been about the worst possible thing to do. But he had to make sure of what he was seeing, and the only distinguishing feature that he could think of to look for was unfortunately located on the face.

He felt like he walked for miles before he got to the end of the dragon's serpentine neck, the crown of spines dripping with the blood of the enemy now felled. But the deep gashes along the neck were severe compared to the minimal responsive damage, and Ichigo knew that it had not been a fair fight to start with, considering some of the wounds on the torso of the dragon were far older than what the centipede Hollow could have inflicted. But he trotted around that heavenly crown of spikes, finally making his way to the muzzle of the great felled dragon.

Much to his surprise, his risk of drawing near to the mouth of the dragon was unfounded. From the short distance away, he could see clearly what he had thought to be teeth before were actually just segments of bone that surrounded the jaw. They looked like teeth, but they did not separate in order to allow the jaw to even move. They were more like a cage of teeth, like something that would be found on a mask. That thought striking him rather hard, he looked down the face of the dragon, noting how the black skin of the eyelids stuck out against the rest of the white bony armor as the eyes underneath lay closed.

Unable to think of anything more clever to say or do, Ichigo bellowed out at the creature in an attempt to get its attention. "Oi!" he barked in his loudest voice possible, hoping that the animal wasn't in fact an animal and that his lingering suspicions were proven correct. The black eyelids drew back, unsheathing a pair of glassy teal eyes.

Eyes that, by no stretch of the imagination, could ever possibly belong to a true Hollow.

The glassy eyes seemed to clear somewhat upon seeing him, which he was thankful for, considering that even if the dragon's teeth couldn't get him, the head could probably still quite easily crush him. A rumbling sound rolled up through the Hollow's throat, coming out as a rolling murmur of what was to Ichigo a rather deafening noise. But the pitch of the noise changed, and if Ichigo had any sense of imagination, it almost sounded like the dragon was trying to say something. He didn't know whether to trust that intuition or to shirk it away, considering how obscure it was. But he decided to settle with the former, considering he had little reason not to. He reached forward hesitantly, stepping gingerly to lay a searching hand on the muzzle of the creature that seemed to be laying at his mercy rather than the other way around.

The second he did, the booming sound of the dragon's chuffing died away, leaving an eerie silence behind. Ichigo was so startled that he almost drew away, and surely would have if it were not for the soft voice that had replaced the dragon's booming vocalizing.

"-saki…" was all he caught, and his attention was immediately snared by the toiling creature. He looked at the one teal eye he could see at the close distance clearly, watching the emotions, now suddenly very clear to him, pass over it like a slideshow for his viewing pleasure. "Kurosaki," the small voice said again, and he realized with a chocked sob that it was Toshiro's little voice talking to him. Tired and weary, it sounded very much unlike his usual self, but Ichigo could not contain the joy he had at even being able to hear it. It was like rain falling on a parched desert, his ears the dehydrated soul waiting for the blessing of rains to come.

"Toshiro," he said, smiling weakly and for a split moment removing his hand from the muzzle of the great dragon body that seemed to be containing the part of Toshiro's soul that he'd been searching for. When he did, whatever Toshiro had said next was lost in a rumbling roar, leaving Ichigo to cover his ears at his own mistake. He quickly put a hand back onto the bony muzzle of the fake Hollow, the echoing roar once again dying down to that quiet voice.

"-didn't think anyone would come," was what he caught next, and he was able to fill in the blanks easily enough himself. Toshiro's voice sounded relieved and saddened at the same time, and Ichigo could understand why. The young Captain had probably had to toil under the assumption that he was going to die out in the desert with nary a thought of rescue directed towards him. He didn't think that anyone would even realize that he was gone, or if they did, even know where to look. Ichigo drew a comforting circle on the bony muzzle with his hand, still smiling weakly.

"Of course we came, idiot," he said, shaking his head. "I couldn't just leave you where when I found out you were gone. Matsumoto couldn't either. You should know by now, Toshiro, we'd never let anything happen to you." He didn't get any response from the young Captain's voice, but knew that the eye closing was a definite show of relief. "I don't know why the hell you'd think we wouldn't come, with all the crazy shit you've been making me see."

The teal eye of the dragon opened again, looking at him with a vague expression that could only be described as curious. But before Toshiro could ask a question further, Toshiro's massive draconian body froze, every bony joint going frigid as the slitted pupils dilated to a narrow line. Ichigo feared for his life for a moment, before Toshiro's head rose from the sand. With some difficulty, it seemed, with his damaged neck, but the dragon's body pulled through, lifting the great head far above the dunes Ichigo was left behind on. Toshiro's elongated snout was craning in every direction he could get it to face, before the nose seemed to settle on the area that had disconcerted him most.

Sensing the issue at hand just before it reared its ugly head, Ichigo bolted towards Toshiro's body, coming into contact with the body scales in just enough time to avoid getting deafened again. Instead, he was just able to catch Toshiro beginning to speak again, rather than having to bleed his way through another experience of a dragon's audience.

"Ichigo," Toshiro's voice said. Ichigo cold feel the massive heart thundering under the bony plates beneath his hand, and he began to worry minutely for Toshiro's apparent lack of health. He was wounded, yes, but now the only question was _how_ wounded. "There's someone coming. It's one of the Espada." The great head turned down to look at him from its estranged perch in the sky, both teal eyes boring into him. With the pupils dilated so strangely, it almost looked like Toshiro's eyes had become fitted to the animal he was to be impersonating. The eyes looked feral and panicked, a sentiment that he could share. "You need to leave, now. Go find Rangiku and get out."

"Hell no!" Ichigo barked back angrily. "There's no way I would have dragged myself out here into the middle of God-damn-knows-where just to leave you behind!" He pounded an angry fist against one of the plates he'd latched onto, trying to get the idea knocked into the other man's head in some way or another. "Besides, Matsumoto and Renji already went back to Urahara's. They'll be waiting there for us. And Matsumoto would kill me if I came crawling back without you."

The dragon's eyes almost seemed humored, but the humor didn't last long. Ichigo could tell it wouldn't, because the dangerously thin pupils had remained thin the entire time. "Kurosaki, this is serious." Staring down those feral eyes made him not doubt it, but he was still defiant to turn tail after he'd come so far. He didn't know what Toshiro being in the strange Hollow body meant, or how it correlated to the rest of his body's condition, but he knew for sure that leaving him in Hueco Mundo to bleed to death or be devoured by other actual Hollows would not supply the answers. "You need to get out of here, and dragging me along with you will only mean you're slowing yourself down. Go get help if you need to, but don't stay here."

"I repeat my previous statement, Toshiro," the red head barked, ignoring the Captain's orders as per his usual habit. "Hell no. Come on now, get up on those big legs of yours, and come with me. If we can keep within this five mile area, another one of Urahara's portals should be opening up and we can both get out of here. I'm not leaving without you, so just get over that fact and get up off that spiny butt of yours."

Having a dragon glare at you was probably one of the scariest experiences that Ichigo had ever had in his life. But he glared back defiantly, holding his ground as Toshiro's dragon head curled around to face him fully. The teal eyes leveled on him, and he realized with a bit of out-of-body shock that Toshiro's dragon eyes were almost hypnotizing. But he resisted the urge to fall into those reptilian eyes' spell, focusing on what Toshiro was probably telling him. "Kurosaki," he said, his voice sounding very much like a dragon's growl, "I _can't_."

The right eye was damaged as he stared at them both, the bony plating clawed asunder by something, leaving blood-dyed bone there instead. That eye was squinted, apparently almost swollen shut, but the hypnotizing effect didn't change anything, and for a moment longer than he would have liked, Ichigo was left numb. He shook his head when the spell passed, growling himself. "Yes you can!" he barked, hating to think that the other's strong will had gone from being defiant to defeatist so quickly.

"God damn it, Kurosaki, listen to me!" Hitsugaya barked at him, this time the roar actually rumbling the ground he stood on. "I am physically incapable of going anywhere! Now stop playing the hero and do something practical for once in your life!" One of the front legs of the massive dragon reached out then, brushing him off surprisingly gently in an attempt to shoo him away. But the force of those massive knuckles still managed to knock the wind out of him.

But, being who he was, Ichigo refused to accept defeat.

So, he latched onto that bony, clawed hand like his life counted on it, glaring at the dragon as he was hoisted into the air. Toshiro's eyes glared back at him, and Ichigo could tell that Toshiro was probably two seconds away from violently shaking him off. Which, probably would have been rather comical if not for their shared current situation. Instead, he clambered onto the more steady part of Toshiro's strange reptilian hand to stand on the wrist, which hadn't moved if only for the sake of him not falling twenty feet to a broken spine. "You seem to be able to move just fine to me, Toshiro," he said, in spite of knowing that the damage along Toshiro's neck and back were probably deciding factors in his mobility. But his hope remained, because it was the only thing he had left.

"Get down, Kurosaki," Toshiro's voice told him coldly, and he was about to argue when those chilling eyes settled on him again, and he decided against it. He jumped down from the lowered hand, from whence said hand settled on the sand beneath Toshiro's lumbering torso. The other front leg pushed up, lifting the deep-barreled chest as the back legs pushed him up.

It was when the back legs lifted that Ichigo realized why Toshiro had assured him that mobility was impossible. His entire left back leg was in shreds. The thick upper thigh was torn across violently, actually leaving pieces of the bony armor missing or falling off, leaving severe wounds open on the black flesh underneath. From the backwards knee the shin of the leg hung limp, turned at an unnatural angle compared to the pristine straightness of the functioning one, alluding to broken bones that left the pad of the foot useless, dragging there in the sand as blood soaked the mangled limb red.

He could also tell that without the support of that back leg, supporting a body as monstrous as the one he was inhabiting was a massively taxing task indeed. He could feel Toshiro's expectant stare at him, but only heard the other growl unhappily at him. He had gotten the point, but that didn't mean that he was going to give up. He'd heard of animals walking on only three legs before. Hell' he'd heard of animals walking on two. He was sure that with some encouraging Toshiro could do it, even if it was painful. And, hopefully he wouldn't have to do it long before the next portal opened up.

"Toshiro, I know it's hard to move around like that, and I know you've probably been wandering around here for a while, but I can't just leave you out here," Ichigo started, staring the other man down seriously. "We've come this far, and risked everything to find you. It wouldn't make any sense to come all this way and just leave you behind, Toshiro. Please, try for us, we've tried for you."

The last comment he made had obviously struck a nerve, and the narrow pupils widened a bit, softening those eyes back to some semblance of humanity. Toshiro's serpentine face lowered, hovering barely a foot away from Ichigo's own face. His hand reached out, gracing the bony nose as he pursed his lips. He watched as Toshiro's weary eyes closed, a deep sigh rattling the shihakusho on his frame as the chilly air blew in a gust out of the dragon's nostrils.

"Thank you, Kurosaki."

Ichigo smiled, patting the nose underneath his hand gently. "Now, come on," he said. "We should get moving now while we have the chance. But we should head back the way you came; the portal opened up somewhere probably a few miles back, so if we stay in that general area, we should be able to catch it when it opens."

The dragon's head bobbed in a nod, before twisting to leave an expanse of neck within Ichigo's grasp. Ichigo looked at Toshiro curiously, and the other only responded by shaking his neck, almost in a welcoming fashion. Ichigo took the hint, and clambered up onto the dragon's neck, perching himself right between a small gap in the crown of horns rimming the dragon's chin. He fit just right between the gap; letting himself have a nice seat as the massive being beneath him struggled up. He glanced back at the dragging leg as Toshiro made a slow turn to head back the way Ichigo had come from, the poor appendage dragging behind him crookedly.

"Come on, Toshiro," Ichigo encouraged as Toshiro's shorter front legs grappled for purchase up the steep dune they'd both fallen down. "You can do it." Quite honestly he was rather confused by the build of the body Toshiro's soul was inhabiting. He'd always considered dragons to be streamlined creatures, built evenly like the twisting lungs of old. But Toshiro's body was more front weighted, with a wider chest cavity narrowing down to a trim pair of back legs with a thick tail trailing after. It just didn't seem practical for any sort of motion that he could think of, and it made him wonder if it had been designed that way.

The dragon below him growled, but made no other comment as the monster dune was crested. Ichigo felt guilty, letting Toshiro carry him, but he knew that traveling in another manner would be more work for both. Ichigo would either be left trailing after Toshiro's far larger strides, or would be pacing ahead and waiting for him to catch up. Either way, he wanted to stick as close to Toshiro as possible, so this seemed to be the best solution. That, and this way he could keep the other encouraged into moving.

But he turned his head when a particularly potent flare of reiatsu came into the stunted range of his spiritual senses. He swallowed, looking down at Toshiro. The dragon's head had snapped in the same direction, and he could feel the shifting worry rolling off the other's vastly encompassing icy spiritual pressure. "Ichigo, get down," the other advised, and Ichigo paused for a moment, trying to think of where the hell he was supposed to go. Ducking behind the crown of spines, he pressed himself close to the soft skin where the neck and skull met beneath. He was dangerously close to Toshiro's wound, and made a point to try avoiding touching it or nudging it as much as he could, but he knew he wasn't doing much of a good job considering he had to get leverage somehow, and that did involve applying pressure somewhere near the damaged area.

Toshiro kept lumbering on, his slow pace making Ichigo feel like the journey was going to linger on forever. But he could feel the opposing spiritual pressure getting closer, and could feel that it was no friend or ally. He clenched his teeth, hoping that he wouldn't have to do anything drastic. It would be hard to offer quick assistance when pressed into such a tight space, and he prayed that it wouldn't have to come to that.

When a low growl went rumbling up from Toshiro's chest, Ichigo was nearly rocked from his precarious seat. He scrambled for purchase, latching onto a bony plate to keep himself rooted. But he was forced to edge back into his hidey-hole, as a rising ridge of spines rose from a crack in the armor that ran down Toshiro's elongated spine. Decently afraid that one was going to gut him, he stayed where he knew the skin was soft and black, and where bones could not rise out to stab him. But he assumed that the spines were raised in a defensive position, meaning that however had followed him had come within visual distance of Toshiro.

Which meant that he needed to be ready to roll at the drop of a hat.

He felt Toshiro's body dip beneath him, the dragon body curling into a defensive position as the head he was hidden behind followed the enemy that now seemed to be circling them.

"There you are, you grimy son of a bitch," he heard Grimmjow's voice drone out. Ichigo's heart nearly stopped, but he kept himself as calm as he could. "Crawling around out here in the desert like the dog you are." He heard the teal man snort. "I'm surprised those idiots didn't find you yet. Guess they turned tail and fled. Must have figured you weren't worth finding."

Another fierce growl rumbled through Toshiro's throat, but this time Ichigo was prepared for it, and was able to brace properly without losing his all important grip. If he could just keep the element of surprise hidden away from Grimmjow for a while longer, they would be fine. They would be just-

He felt Toshiro's muscles tense before he saw why. The dragon's body had given a great start, and the three working legs had tried valiantly to backpedal before a blur of blue jumped into Ichigo's limited vision of the rest of Toshiro's body. There was a gleam of metal, and a gush of crimson blood as Toshiro bellowed in pain. As quick as he'd come, Grimmjow was gone, leaving the toiling dragon with a jagged X carved deep into his side. Ichigo could feel Toshiro's mighty legs quaking with the strain of trying not to fall, and willed himself to wait just a second longer. Just one more minute, and he would go out and defend them, save both of them just in time. But even his second-sharp reflexes weren't prepared for what happened next.

Quick as a flash, Toshiro's body was twisting again, this time the opposite way as his head reared up, his upper body lifting off the ground in an attempt to protect himself from the oncoming strike. The only issue was that apparently Grimmjow had accounted for that, and had aimed with viciously strong force at the juncture between where the dragon's body and neck met. The dragon's already battered body crumbled in response to the rocking strike, and Ichigo had to hold on for that agonizing second of fall before he and Toshiro thundered to the ground in an almighty heap.

He felt the dragon's vocal chords rumbling in agony beneath him, but all his ears could hear was Toshiro's voice, crying out in agony. And a split second of one of his visions tore across his vision, then, of Toshiro laying on the sands of Hueco Mundo, his mouth moving in soundless agony, screaming for help.

His will to wait for a surprise moment broke at that point, and he jumped out from his hiding place, launching a furious swing of Zangetsu's blade at the very much unsuspecting Grimmjow. He knocked the combatant back quite substantially, considering his intention for surprising the other had been accomplished in spite of him feeling he'd come out too early. But he couldn't care, not with that gut-wrenching image stuck in his head.

He looked back to Toshiro, seeing that the other had fared worse than he'd first thought. The gashes on his side were severe, and cut across one of the shoulders of his front legs. The limb could still move, but Ichigo could only imagine how much it would hurt having to put a large amount of weight on that torn muscle. But what worried him most was the gaping wound that was carved against the poor beast's neck. The junction's plates had split beneath the force of the strike, the armor there weaker in the first place not helping to protect him at all. But Grimmjow's blade had cut deep, digging in further than Ichigo could see.

He bolted back over to where Toshiro lay toiling, the bestial simpering coming from him far more than his heart could bear. He knelt next to Toshiro's head, the blue eyes closed harshly at the pain. He glanced over his shoulder, finding Grimmjow had not been able to pick himself back up just yet. But a strange prickling sensation ran over his neck, and he heard the distant, gruesome tearing of space as another one of Urahara's portals opened. He could see it, bursting through the dark sky in the distance. It was far, but not far enough for them to get to in time if they hurried.

He turned back to Toshiro, knowing that he had to get the other up before Grimmjow came back. Much to his dismay, he could hear the Espada stalking back towards them, muttering curses the entire time. He pushed at Toshiro's muzzle, noting how a faint trickle of blood had begun to seep out between the teeth-shaped slats in the bony mask. The teal eyes opened, looking up at him hazily.

"Come on, Toshiro," he said, standing in an attempt to coax even Toshiro's head up from where it lay on the ground. "Come on, we have to go, now."

"You're not going anywhere, you son of a bitch," Grimmjow snarled from behind him, and Ichigo's heart thundered as he turned to face him. His grip on Zangetsu's hilt tightened, but a heave of movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention away from his blue-haired opponent.

Toshiro, by some miracle, was standing, having heaved himself up off the bloodied sands beneath him. The wide chest heaved, more blood dripping from the white muzzle of the wounded dragon. But something happened then that Ichigo had not expected.

From a wide gap in the segments of Toshiro's armor that ran down his sides, two massive black wings spread. The bony limbs spread out, shadowing over both of them in a monstrous spread, blocking out the moonlight of Hueco Mundo for a short second. Grimmjow had stepped back, gaping in fear as the dragon suddenly appeared thrice his original behemoth size. But Ichigo remained, having a vague idea of what Toshiro was about to do.

Sure enough, the head of the dragon dipped low, and the large body surged forward. Ichigo reached out, catching himself over the snout of the dragon as Toshiro all but steamrolled Grimmjow over, his massive legs churning as he took off with an almighty jump into the dark sky of the Hollow world. The strange dis-balance of weight between the front and the back was now explained, considering the weight could be bore easily by wings so large. The wings pumped harshly for a moment, struggling to get lift, but after a few agonizing seconds of struggling takeoff, everything smoothed out, their ascent finished at an almost insurmountable distance between them and the ground.

Ichigo had almost stopped breathing at that point, perched atop the dragon's brow as he felt the massive body beneath him pumping with the taxes of slight. But he could feel the tension in Toshiro's spiritual pressure, and knew that this had been his last ditch effort at getting them through. Ichigo was on the verge of encouraging him, but knew that the other had to concentrate doggedly to keep himself streamlined and functioning enough for flight.

Thankfully, though, the genius still breathing behind Toshiro's now frightening exterior had caught onto their intended flight path without even needing to be told. His massive body rocketed towards the portal, so fast that Ichigo was sure that they would arrive far before the portal closed. He was proven correct, when they neared at what he felt to be a dangerously fast pace. He glanced down at Toshiro, feeling the other's tire in how their flying had succumbed to gliding, into free falling to conserve energy. Ichigo was holding on for dear life, a thought suddenly striking him so hard that he felt he'd be knocked right off the head of the dragon.

Toshiro's girth was far too large to pass through the turbulent passage world safely.

He almost shouted out to the dragon, but before he had the chance they'd plunged into the portal, the darkness of Hueco Mundo replaced with the darkness of the precipice world instead. But now Ichigo could understand why Toshiro had been letting them free fall; by increasing speed, he'd allowed himself a long arch of flying distance without needing to have his wings open. He'd anticipated the passage to be difficult, and had compensated ahead of time.

But unfortunately, as Ichigo had been about to warn, the precipice world was not the stable environment that Toshiro had expected it to be. A black wall surged in towards them, and with an expert flick of the wing they were barreled out of harm's way, towards the light at the end of the hellish tunnel that signaled their imminent success. But he could hear Toshiro's voice, growling in pain, in his head, ringing like a bell.

When they burst through the end of the tunnel, he was blinded completely for a moment. The bright light of Urahara's underground training facility was a stark change compared to the dark of Hueco Mundo, and the connective world that lay in between. He felt Toshiro's black wings spread out once again beneath them, but the landing was rough and clumsy, a Ichigo could only assume that Toshiro had long passed his limitations. But still, the fact remained that even as his tattered body drug to a stop, Toshiro kept his great head held up, as if to keep Ichigo from the unkempt landing.

He succeeded, save for when at last his great head thundered down, his neck no longer strong enough to hold the weight. Wisely, Ichigo had jumped off at that point, landing atop one of the monstrous mounds of stone that lay strewn about the grounds. He looked down in misery at the mess that was Toshiro Hitsugaya, a frown settling deep into his face as he watched the tortured soul pant heavily.

But when flashes of color began to sprout up around him, he knew that something was wrong. Renji and Matsumoto had appeared in front of him, down on the ground where Toshiro lay heaving. Their swords were drawn, completely prepared to eradicate the Hollow that had so unceremoniously broken into their designated space. But before Ichigo could call out to them to stop, someone else did it for him.

Urahara, the wily old man himself, stood before them all in the blink of an eye. He had a hand on the fallen dragon's snout, standing in front of him as if his tiny body could protect the massive creature behind him. Ichigo didn't doubt that he could, but the size comparison was a hard one to quantify seriously.

"Now, now, all of you settle down," he said, voice still eerily cheery. "We don't want you attacking Captain Hitsugaya, now, do we?"

* * *

-This chapter was primarily inspired by this lovely song that Pandora radio dropped in my lap whilst writing this. It's peppy, but the lyrics had some very potent meaning, and I couldn't help but like it. It was "So Small" by the Italo Brothers. Woot for European techno. Okay, so seeing as I've been conditioning to write several thousand words a day, I figured I might as well use that towards something marginally useful. Thankfully, because of all of the conditioning I did for NaNoWriMo, a multi-thousand word chapter like this, which probably would have taken me several days before, only takes me a matter of one or two. Whether that's sad or kinda cool has yet to be determined. Anyway, I'm still up in the air over the sequel for this fic, which has changed titles for those of you who haven't noticed. The reason why I changed the title was so that the title for the sequel fic could be related. Because, as creative as I tried to be with a proper sequel title, I just couldn't come up with one. But with the title it has now, the sequel will at least now be able to have a related title. Yay for relevance. Anyway the polls are still up for the pairing to be featured in fic 2, and there may actually be two pairings depending on how industrious I feel. I'm still trying to get all of my kinks worked out for that plot, so I'm working on it. Anyway, posted past this point are the stats for the votes on the pairing in fic 2. Here they are as they stand thus far:

Ichi-Hitsu: 10 votes

Renji-Shuuhei: 8 votes

Kensei-Shuuhei: 5 votes

No Pairing (No fic): 2 votes

Byakuya-Shuuhei: 2 votes

8-90s love,

crypto


	7. Visions of the Night

"They say the meek shall inherit the earth.

How long will you keep it?

They sow a harvest, but what's it worth?

There's no one left to reap it."

Sting: 'Visions of the Night'

The silence settled heavily about the room as Urahara stood before them all, his quite mischievous smile unabashedly bared at all of them as he stood protecting the heaving dragon that lay on the ground behind him. Ichigo could hear an unsettling wet sound rattling in the dragon's breathing, and knew that bleeding into his lungs wouldn't be unlikely with the amount of damage he'd sustained. He grimaced, using a flash step to descend back down onto ground level to join the eccentric shop keeper, looking probably with just as much of a pained expression as Toshiro bore down at the struggling behemoth's bony face. It was making his heart wrench just to look at him. But he knew that he would never look away; not when there was so much that he needed to see in order to resolve this conundrum of a situation.

"Kisuke, have you lost your mind?" Renji barked, sounding disbelieving in spite of having already lowered his sword. Ichigo knew that he would probably have more than a decent amount of trouble believing what was about to unfold, but he would have to push aside his disbelief when the truth really did hit him. "That is _not_ Captain Hitsugaya!"

Ichigo _almost_ cringed at the violent _thwack _he heard follow Renji's statement, only realizing afterwards what had happened. The punch to Renji's arm had been a damn good one from what he could hear, and he didn't guess that there was more than enough emotion behind it from the look on Matsumoto's face. He knew that she was thrumming with emotion over the whole ordeal, and it had come out in her strike. He noted with a bit of worry that there were tears in her eyes as she stepped forward tenuously, but the strength in her voice dissuaded him from being too concerned.

"Yes it is, Renji, you idiot," she said, biting her lip as she got close enough for her shihakusho to be ruffled by the dragon's strained panting. She walked closer still, past Urahara, who watched her with the eyes of a falcon gleaming beneath the shadow of his hat, until she knelt down to place a gentle hand on the long snout of the dragon. "Can't you feel his spiritual pressure at all?"

"Of course I can, Rangiku," Renji bit back automatically, before actually taking heed of her words and blinking slowly, his narrow eyes widening as he realized just what Matsumoto had. That the massive, threshing spiritual pressure bearing down on the small room, in spite of being beyond what any of them had expected, was still very much the same as the icy Captain whom they all knew so well. "Oh my God," Ichigo heard him whisper, the grip on his sword looking so loose as to be near dropping Zabimaru onto the ground beneath Renji's own feet.

Renji's surprise was then transferred to Ichigo, the whites of his eyes still visible even from Ichigo's post some distance away. "Ichigo, how did you ever know how to find him?"

"Or where for that matter," Rangiku said, shifting her worrying eyes to him for a moment as she finally realized the strangeness of their situation. As if it hadn't been strange enough from the very beginning. "No wonder you were gone so long; Renji and I feared that we would have to go back in after you when the portal opened." She glanced back at her Captain, her eyes softening for a split second. "I'm glad we didn't; you would have run us over if we had, and then we'd all have hell to reckon with."

"I wouldn't have let you go back in anyway," Urahara interrupted before Ichigo was forced to bring forth an answer, snapping his fan open as he drew it out of the inner folds of his coat. But Ichigo could tell that this time, he wasn't smiling behind it. His tone was serious; lacking its usual playful lilt. "It would have wasted time that none of you have. And, in going along with that, I'm going to forbid you from dawdling too long here. You're still wasting time that you don't have."

Ichigo looked at him suspiciously, knowing that the man always knew more than he showed, but wondering now just how far that omnipotence went. Ichigo was also aware that the former Captain had a nasty habit of hiding pertinent secrets whenever he deemed them unfit for common knowledge. But this time, Ichigo was almost willing to let him get away with it, because he got the ominous feeling that Urahara knew almost as much about the intimates of this situation as he did.

Which was a scary thought, considering the higher ups in the Soul Society knew damn well close to all of it, so for Urahara to know, or even have guessed more than them was a rather intimidating prospect indeed. But he waited, and listened patiently for the other man to explain. He knew that it might have been expecting a little much from him, but he had to hope for something. And something told him that Kisuke would at least have to explain why, one, he seemed to know so much about the situation, and, two, why he seemed to know exactly what to and not to let them do.

"What do you mean by that?" Ichigo asked at long last, breaking down to goad the other man into telling. Urahara's face still had the faint undertones of seriousness on it, insuring that he wasn't just going to brush them off like dust on his lapel. The keen gray eyes glanced back at him from beneath the shadow of the shopkeeper's hat, but he held his ground. He knew that Kisuke would be looking for signs of weakness; reasons not to tell him. And Ichigo knew that if he gave the man even one, he would say nothing, regardless of how much he begged, prodded, and yelled.

"I mean that by asking such silly questions, you're wasting opportunities you may have to rectify this situation before it becomes irrevocable," the ex-Captain state, his tone grave as it may as well have chilled the room just as well as Toshiro's undulating spiritual pressure. "You cannot fix your problems here, Mr. Kurosaki. I would suggest your adjourn your little group back to somewhere where you can."

"Got any bright ideas?" Ichigo asked, his tone a bit biting. He knew that Urahara was pretty much telling him to hurry up and get his ass moving, but he couldn't exactly do that without knowing what exactly he was supposed to do with a one and a half story dragon once he got back to the Soul Society. He'd been flying blind for long enough, and he wanted at least some minor direction before he started going so again. And, from the look in Urahara's slate eyes, he knew exactly what they needed to do and where they needed to go.

"Actually, yes," he replied, surprisingly cooperative with the Substitute for once in his convoluted little life. Ichigo could have growled at him, but waited as the other man snapped his fan shut once more, pointing towards Ichigo himself. "It is imperative that you take Captain Hitsugaya back to the Soul Society immediately. Should something become of his body whilst he is here, it is unknown what would become of the soul inside or the body lying in the 4th Division as we speak. The less dimensional space we put between the two, the better of he will be."

"But what good will that do if we don't even know what will happen to the body if they're close?" Renji quipped, making a quite solid point. Ichigo couldn't answer it, so he glanced back questioningly at Kisuke. The man couldn't just keep running from all of these implications that he was making, no matter how hard he was going to try. In this case, there was no way that Ichigo was going to let him get away with messing around in the shadows. Not when he knew something that could obviously help Toshiro.

Urahara looked as if he were almost on the verge of rolling his eyes at the temperamental Lieutenant. "Because at least in the Soul Society you have the minds and the means to figure out what's going on. Here, you have neither the equipment nor the convenient access to the body in question." He glanced over at Ichigo furtively. "And before you even ask, I'm keeping my nose out of this because if Head Captain Yamamoto catches wind that I've been examining the body, you'll never get anywhere. He'll destroy Toshiro before he'd let him be examined again. He'll do whatever it takes to avoid another incident like the one with the Hogyoku, Ichigo, I promise you that."

Ichigo _hated_ the fact that he could easily picture Yamamoto doing just that. It was disgusting revelation, but one that he couldn't avoid. He was clenching his teeth, so hard he was sure he was going to crack them and break his jaw. Toshiro had already needlessly suffered at the hands of Central 46's abhorrent traditions and under Yamamoto's ludicrous habit for jumping to conclusions. And now history was about to repeat itself, and put the young man through trials that would have easily crushed grown men. Ichigo was almost to be point of being done protecting the Souls Society, considering how horribly they treated their own Captains. But he knew that the alternative was supporting a raving lunatic who had a quite serious God complex, so there was little wiggle room left for him to question in.

He was, however, actually impressed that neither Renji nor Rangiku had said anything in response to Kisuke's statement. Yamamoto was their Head Captain, and yet apparently even they could see his flaws. They were kind of difficult to miss, when they allowed things like this to happen. He glanced down at Toshiro, wiling himself not to crush his own jaw in anger. Urahara was quite right; they had no more time to linger here. Not when Toshiro's condition was deteriorating by the second.

"Fine," he said, casting the former Squad 12 Captain a very wary glance. Urahara still had far too solid of an answer to not be under suspicion. He'd been anticipating questions, for which he had obviously prepared answers. Now the only question was why, and just how long had he been anticipating a game of Twenty Questions to be thrown his way. "But when this is all over, you and I have some talking to do."

Kisuke did not deny him, instead just glancing down at where Rangiku still sat stroking the muzzle of her Captain. "Don't worry, Captain," she said, sounding much too much like a worried mother consoling her blubbering child. "We'll figure this out, I know we will. Everyone in the Soul Society is going to help. Ichigo has already done so much, I know that with him on our side we won't let anything bad happen to you.

Ichigo brushed off the praises, glancing back at where Rangiku still knelt next to a very unresponsive Toshiro. He almost felt sorry; knowing how much he himself hated to be fawned over. He couldn't imagine how much Toshiro would loathe it now, especially considering how much he needed the actual medical attention that fawning prevented him from getting. But he also knew how much he was hating how hopeful Rangiku sounded. It wasn't just going to be fixed with an X-ray and a Band-Aid. This was no simple fix; this was no simple situation at all. How she could even think like that was beyond him, but he supposed that she was trying to stave off her own worry by reassuring herself with words that were probably irrational.

"You seemed mighty skeptical about us being able to bring him back with us when we left," Ichigo commented, looking at his mentor out the corners of his eyes with a bit of a slanted glare. Here he was, trying to stave off his own frustration with words. Admittedly much differently contextualized words, but the fact remained that he was using the same tactic. "And now you go gallivanting around like you knew we'd be back. Quite the change of heart, Mr. Kisuke, even for one as black as yours."

The blond man only laughed, tittering in his usual way behind his fan, which was now reopened in front of his scraggy face. "Ooh, I almost felt that one, Mr. Kurosaki," he said, walking over to Rangiku. She glanced up at him, apparently ten times the amount of skeptical that Ichigo was at their little exchange. But she stood up when he motioned for her to do so, in spite of that apparent suspicion. She stepped away as Urahara knelt in her place, taking a hand to the snout of the dragon. "Now then, Captain Hitsugaya," he said, the smile in his voice just barely able to mask the seriousness behind his words, "do you know where you are presently?" At least Urahara wasn't stealing their escapist patterns.

A low grumble burbled up the dragon's throat, vibrating the floor beneath their feet as the enclosed space made the already decently loud noise reverberate and double in volume. Ichigo was unaffected; already used to the dragon's much louder musings from their time alone together. But Renji and Rangiku had been caught totally unawares, both of them covering up their ears and their eyes going wide at the guttural sound that had come from the bestial body that lay before them all. But Ichigo's trained ear could still hear the quiet modulations in the sound that did indicate a very purposeful vocalization.

Urahara's laughter broke the descending silence in the room, sounding for once like he was almost genuinely amused. He, unlike the rest of them, was actually touching Toshiro, and had apparently caught quite well what the other man had said. "You always were quick on the uptake," he commented, patting the dragon's nose as the great black nostrils flared in what Ichigo was amusedly able to discern as a snort. Even beneath all the scales and armor, it seemed that Toshiro was still Toshiro. Knowing that eased him a bit, and made him more patient than he would have been privy to being otherwise. "Now, and I suppose this is the more important question, can you move?"

This time the silence was not broken by Urahara's laughter. Instead, they all stood and watched as the dragon, still heaving and bleeding a damn bloody mess onto Urahara's floor, righted itself to sit on its stomach. Ichigo stepped forward when Toshiro raised his head shakily, seeing the muscle beneath the plated armor spasm in pain from the wound inflicted at the juncture of his neck. The teal eyes were clenched shut in concentration, but the struggling of the functioning legs to lift seemed to not be enough. There was simply not enough energy left in the being to exert a push strong enough to get it up. Ichigo couldn't blame him; the tax of wounds on top of exhaustion on top of overall mental strain would have kept him incapacitated for quite a while. But, without a second thought, Ichigo stepped around Urahara and Rangiku back towards Toshiro's torso. Wounded though it was, he knew it could handle a bit of pressure.

"Renji," he barked, the red head blinking back at him in confusion, "go get on the other side. We're gonna help him up." The Lieutenant nodded, running around to the other side while Rangiku looked at them both skeptically. He could tell that she was happy they were trying, but thought their efforts perhaps a little foolish. There lay in her eyes that same emotion as before, the one that spelled feminine babblings as a source of comfort to herself rather than those around her.

"Ichigo, if he can't get up on his own, he's not going to be able to walk. You helping him up won't do him any good," she said, apparently hating to sound as despondent as she did. Which surprised Ichigo, considering he could have sworn that she was going to erupt in nonsensical encouragement. But apparently she was able to get a hold of herself, and handled herself sternly. He appreciated it, even though he chose not to voice such.

Turning, Ichigo merely shook his head as he placed to firm hands on the ribcage of the dragon, pushing up with as much force as he could muster. "Trust me, Rangiku, if we can get him up, he'll stay up until he can't stay up anymore. We just need to get him up and he'll be okay for a while," he assured through gritted teeth as he pushed up with all his might. It didn't change the fact that the dragon was massive, but the assistance did seem to help the slightest bit, in that Toshiro was no longer struggling to stay an inch standing, but several feet standing. The labored wet-sounding heaving continued, rumbling snarls of effort rocking the floor through the dragon's feet as he vocalized his efforts. Ichigo could feel the vibrations, but instead only heard Toshiro's swearing to himself as he tried to push himself up.

"Tessai! Come down here please," Urahara called towards the entrance to the training grounds, sensing that the boys would need help but apparently uninterested in offering that help himself. Regardless, the spectacled behemoth descended from the shop above, trotting over and taking a place between the dragon's two front legs to push up on the heaviest portion of the body without even needing to be told. Apparently he'd been listening in on their little conversation, which didn't surprise Ichigo, considering everyone in the damn house knew everything that was going on under its roof. Tessai's added help lifted the torso of the dragon up just enough to where Toshiro could get his joints locked up in a decent position, the back leg still functioning shifting to support the weight.

Again, Ichigo glanced back and winced at the marred tatters of the other hind leg, hoping to God that someone in the damn house would be able to heal him. Or, perhaps not in the house, but in the Soul Society where they were headed. Now that they had Toshiro up, they couldn't afford to have him down until they knew it would be somewhere decently safe. And in spite of Urahara's obvious ability to keep his own shop protected, the risk that the shopkeeper had alluded to earlier weighed heavily enough to keep them from lingering.

Once lurched up, Toshiro took one massive heaving breath, his head sagging. Ichigo watched in minor fascination as the ridge of tines following along Toshiro's spine lifted and sank with each inhalation and exhalation. Toshiro's wings were half folded against his body, not quite tucked back under the armor plates as they were before. The black leathery skin contrasted heavily against the white bone armor, though the gaping areas of red served as a distraction for that.

But something Ichigo saw immediately worried him. As he'd cast a shifting glance at the wings, it appeared that they'd been damaged. The bony struts that were the fingers of the wing stretched out for yards, to quite impeccable distance. But it seemed that a small chunk of one of the fingertips, and the black leathery skin around it had been torn away. Ichigo wracked his brain, trying to think how on Earth the wing had been damaged. It had been perfectly pristine when they'd left Hueco Mundo, but that fact alone made him realize what had transpired. When Toshiro had so expertly steered them away from destruction in the precipice world, he must have nicked his own wing in the process. Hence the unhappy bellow he'd given at that time. Ichigo glanced around the other side of the dragon, seeing that the other wing was left undamaged, thankfully. It just seemed like everything about this entire ragtag mission was out to assure their failure. But Ichigo wouldn't have it. Regardless of what Aizen, or even Head Captain Yamamoto had to say about it, he wasn't about to let either of them hurt an innocent man.

He strode up, placing one comforting hand on the dragon's neck. He could see small trails of blood dripping out between the slats that served as the fake teeth on the mask, making him realize that it was likely his mental note on internal bleeding was quite possibly correct. "Toshiro, we're going to have to get you through the Senkaimon, and ten to one says that we won't be on the ground. Do you think you can at least glide for a little bit?"

He watched the dragon nod shakily, knowing that talking would probably be just a bit too difficult with his current breathing situation. He knew that it was more than unlikely that Toshiro could fully fly again at this point, considering the damaged wing would be a massive hindrance. However, gliding was a possibility, so long as it didn't require a lot of steering.

"Ichigo, what are we going to do once we even get back to the Soul Society?" Renji questioned, sounding serious yet incredulous as he did often times. It was a rather impressive mix of emotions, yet he pulled them off surprisingly well. "We can't exactly just fly him into the Seireitei; everything would fall into chaos."

"We won't," Ichigo assured, and a room's worth of eyes settled on him. He looked at all of them, knowing he would have to explain his hair brained scheme before they could embark. "We'll take him out to the forests outside the Rukon District, keep him hidden until we can get help. He'll glide out to somewhere where he won't be seen, lay low, and keep his spiritual pressure down so he won't attract any Hollows or Soul Reapers. Then we'll go the Soul Society and get help. I'll go get Captain Unohana, and you guys go explain what's happened so far to Head Captain Yamamoto. We'll just have to work our way from there."

"I couldn't have said it better myself," the shopkeeper said, smiling for once as he continued to fiddle with his damnable fan. "Now, shall you all get a move on, or would you like me to serve up a pot of tea while you waffle over any more decisions?"

A low growl from Toshiro told Urahara clearly enough that it was the former option they would be opting with, and Ichigo couldn't help but smile.

* * *

Ichigo didn't ever think that he would find something comparable to riding on the back of a dragon in his lifetime. It was something too extraordinary to be outdone, especially as the expanses of the Soul Society stretched out underneath him in a swirl of noonday color. Toshiro wisely kept his gliding low, just barely skimming over the tops of the trees as they retreated from the Senkaimon door and out into the crawling forests outside the Hakuto gate to the west of the Seireitei. Ichigo was unfamiliar with the districts further out, away from the wall, but he knew that they would be close enough to Squad 4's barracks to make for a short trip. For him at least. Renji and Rangiku would have a bit further to go in order to reach Head Captain Yamamoto, but he was strangely alright with that.

If anything, it would actually allow Captain Unohana to perhaps do something for Toshiro before Yamamoto forbade it or did something else that was unhealthily stupid.

He barely noticed that they'd been making to land until Toshiro's front feet dipped down slowly to scrape against the ground. This landing was much smoother than the one back at Urahara's shop, considering he'd been allowed to come to a more prolonged stop. However it was still rather halting, considering he had to skip in a strange, awkward motion to keep from landing on his bad leg. He paced for a moment, letting his momentum die off from the short flight before stopping to let off his passengers. Ichigo was tempted to make some kind of comment about flying Air Toshiro, but decided to save it for later when it might actually be appreciated.

He, Renji, and Rangiku hopped off the back of the dragon as it reigned in its spiritual pressure, keeping the crown of white tines well below the tree line in spite of them being well away from where even the smallest shacks in the closest district began. Renji and Rangiku both looked to him for a moment, and he in turn looked back to Toshiro. The dragon seemed to be having a very difficult time choosing whether or not to stay standing and risk being seen, or lie down and risk never getting up again. Or at least risk not being able to get up without assistance. Lots of assistance. Finally, he seemed to resign himself to his own exhaustion, and settled himself slowly down onto the ground, letting his head rest down as he tried to keep his breathing from devolving into panicked heaving.

"We'll be back soon, Toshiro," Ichigo assured, nodding to the two Lieutenants accompanying him to indicate they were to leave immediately. The dragon, not surprisingly, said nothing in return. Even though Ichigo would have liked to keep one of them posted by the young Captain just in case, they needed the strength of two Lieutenants appealing to the Head Captain in order to get anything done. He knew better than to think one person could convince Yamamoto to do anything rational, so there was no other option for that particular effort. Turning, he immediately set off in a set of overly hastened flash steps, shooting past Renji and Rangiku as they made their way back to the Seireitei.

He reached the wall first, seeing as it had been erected in their time of instability. At least this time he could rest assured that Gin Ichimaru wouldn't be waiting on the other side of it to stab him. That thought darkened him a bit, but he pushed it aside. He could worry about Gin's implications later; right now there was rather pivotal work to be done. He looked around hastily, but could not see any of the Gate Guardians around. He knew that it wasn't necessary for him to have one to get in, considering he was now one of the sanctioned few non-official Soul Reapers that was granted unlimited access. He was over the wall in short time, bounding over rooftops in the outer reaches of the Seireitei as the scent of rain-washed buildings flooded his nose. The rain had burned off in the morning, but it's threatening tang still lingered on from the night storm.

He knew that his haste at this point would be the only thing that would keep Toshiro safe. The faster he returned, the less time Toshiro would have to spend alone in the forest. And though he knew he could probably handle small enemies by himself, he wanted to take as few chances as he could to have the other accrue even more bloody damage than he already had.

He almost went over the Squad 4 hospital with how fast he'd been going. But he managed to skid to a stop at the end of the roof rather than jumping again, and leapt down onto the courtyard leading to the front entrance. He went careening through the halls, and managed to glean from a highly fleeting exchange with Hanataro that Captain Unohana was attending to Toshiro's body. He at least knew where that was, and made a direct route to that location through the winding maze of halls that made up the 4th.

Bursting through the door probably wasn't the wisest entrance he could have made, but he was still in such a mad rush that it mattered very little to the besieged battlements of his mind. She seemed to have anticipated him, probably from the thrashing amount of worried spiritual pressure he was letting off, but more likely from the racket he had made, and was already halfway to the door he had just burst through by the time he got to actually saying anything.

"Captain Unohana, I need you to come with me right now," he said, and thankfully she didn't contend him. Instead she just nodded gravely, instructing Isane, whom Ichigo had not even noticed up until that moment, to remain watching over Captain Hitsugaya's body while she stepped out. Thus making it sound like she was under the misguided impression that this wasn't going to take long. Ichigo didn't quite have the heart or the balls to correct her. So just as quickly as they'd rushed in, they rushed out again, back to jumping from rooftop to rooftop as Ichigo's mad dash back out to the forests of the Rukon district began again. Yet again, Ichigo was thankful that Unohana didn't feel the need to ask unnecessary questions. She did ask a few, and he gladly allowed her those, considering they were rather pertinent.

"I assume that Head Captain Yamamoto is being informed of this situation as well," she said, and Ichigo's hastened nod gave her enough of an answer to not need to ask again. She probably could have been justified in doing so, but instead moved to her next question. "What is the situation, exactly, Mr. Kurosaki?"

"I'll explain it to you when you won't say I'm crazy," Ichigo said over his shoulder, earning an amused, and befuddled look from the female Captain. "Trust me, you're going to have to see this to believe it.

And, true to his word, Ichigo found that even he himself was not prepared for what greeted him when they returned to the clearing he'd not left but seconds ago. Toshiro was still there, thankfully, but he was not alone. Not by any means. But, much to Ichigo's luck, this time his companion was someone who was apparently filling the empty role of temporary guardian until Ichigo returned with help. Ichigo himself was smiling, if not a bit confusedly as he strode towards where Toshiro lay, cradled against the massive gatekeeper that Ichigo had missed at the wall earlier.

Apparently, the reason why the West Gate had been left unattended was because Jidanbo had purposefully left it to attend to the Captain left toiling alone in the wilderness. The massive gatekeeper had the dragon cradled against his lap, the gargantuan hands holding the head of the dragon and soothing the neck in long, languid strokes. The behemoth was crying, blubbering about how worried he'd been, only bursting into further tears at the sight of Ichigo and Captain Unohana arriving. Ichigo had heard vague rumors that the 10th Squad Captain had a vague friendship with the behemoth of the Hakuto Gate, but had never given it much thought. Now, it seemed the rumors were quite correct.

"Oh, Spiky-Head, I knew you'd save him," the Soul Reaper babbled, massive tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes to drip down his trembling lips. "I knew you wouldn't just let him die." The childish being petted the cheek of the dragon, and Ichigo realized with a very panicked start that Toshiro, in spite of Jidanbo's assuredly gentle ministrations, remained unresponsive to them. He was still breathing, but the breaths were deep and steady, the blackened muscles beneath the white bony armor lax.

He rushed forward, panic coloring his thoughts in a whirl. "Toshiro?" he almost yelled, jumping up onto Jidanbo's knee to examine the face that lay in the massive man's lap. The dragon continued to not respond, and his heart thundered in his chest. He couldn't tell if it was just the eventual building up of exhaustion that had incapacitated the dragon, or the final setting in of the amount of damage he had taken. Had it been too much for him? Would it be the end of him? All of these horrendous possibilities shot through his head, each worse than the last.

"Don't worry, Mr. Kurosaki," he heard Captain Unohana's calm voice intone from the ground. He glanced back over his shoulder at her, finding it very hard not to worry considering their circumstances. He honestly couldn't understand how she could be. "He's only resting. Once we relocate him somewhere more reishi dense he should be able to reawaken and recover a bit more quickly. But for now I would ask that both you and Mr. Ikkanzaka to remove yourselves from him. There is much work that I must do before anyone else arrives and before he is handed over to Squad 12 for examination."

Ichigo physically blanched at the mere thought. If that _bastard_ Kurotsuchi got his grubby little hands on Toshiro, none of them would ever see him again. "No," he growled, hopping down to face the woman as Jidanbo gently resettled Toshiro's body onto the ground. In spite of the guardian's size, he was capable of being surprisingly gentle. "There is no way I'm going to let that bastard Mayuri touch him. He'll kill Toshiro before he'll help him, you can't expect anyone to-"

A single raised hand silenced the rest of his arguments, and he bit his lip to keep from letting himself continue. "Please, Mr. Kurosaki, do not worry," she said, her tone earnest as she spoke to him. He wished he could have been calmed by her assurance, but he couldn't bring himself to be so when so much was at risk. "I have no intention of letting anything happen to Captain Hitsugaya."

"And how do you intend to do that?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Because I have no intention of letting Captain Kurotsuchi touch him either."

* * *

-TADA! This took me longer than it should have, and it's probably shorter than it should be, but this fic has gone over some major reconstruction since last I updated. It's now quite a bit longer than I'd first anticipated, and a decent bit more complex. But I think you guys will get that more as we go on. Anyway, I apologize for my lateness, and beg your eternal forgiveness on my pour lazy soul. I'm back to college for my spring semester, and my new major is keeping me quite occupied. For those of you potential linguists out there, taking 2 college level language courses at once is a lot harder than it sounds. Just saying. Anyway, I hope you've all been doing well, and enjoyed this chapter. Feel free to expect another one in February, along with another set of drabbles now that I've gotten his lovely little ditty done. Please vote either in a review or on the poll on my profile for the fic for Freeze to White. And, just so you all aren't concerned, Ichi-Hitsu is just flat out going to happen in the sequel, regardless of the poll. Just thought I'd let you all know. And with that I will speak at you all later, my biffles. Till then.

Renji-Shuuhei: 7

Kensei-Shuuhei: 5

No Pairing: 2

Byakuya-Shuuhei: 2

8-90s love,

crypto


	8. Deathwish

"Deathwish in the fading light

Headlight painting through the night

Never thought I'd see the day

Playing with my life this way."

Sting: 'Deathwish'

Ichigo was always thankful that Unohana knew how to do her job without having to be asked. It was unnerving, having to watch her work at Toshiro's body from a distance, but he knew he could trust her more than anyone with this particular situation. Well, save for perhaps himself. But sadly his proficiency for healing kidou, or even kidou at all, was null and void. He couldn't even claim to need practice; he had no idea how to even use the most rudimentary spells that Rukia seemed to know implicitly. And he couldn't count how many times she had ripped him one for that fault; but he only ever survived under the guise that no one was perfect; and he was no exception.

But at this point he was wishing that he was perfect. If he could even do rudimentary kidou, he could have done something to have eased Toshiro's pain. But now, the best he could do was deliver him safely to those who could help him, and to those who could ease his pain. But he was leery of that idea; of easing his pain and of their ability to do so. It wasn't just about physical pain. It wasn't just about physical or mental displacement. It was about something far more than that, and to Ichigo, it had been from the beginning. From the very, very beginning of the whole affair. It wasn't even about the destruction of the soul, as much as that is what it appeared to be. He just had this lingering hesitance in his gut, past the roiling emotions and the helter skelter ride that came with them, about that theory.

Because if that was what Aizen had intended to do, he would by no means have let them come in and out so easily. He would not have left Toshiro sitting out on a silver platter for them to take. Even Ichigo knew he was too smart for that, and it disturbed him that the possibility of the other man having planned for them to rescue Toshiro even existed. And yet it did; that lingering risk hid in the shadows as they fretted to connect ends that didn't have the same beginnings.

But he kept quiet for the time being, watching Captain Unohana set to her work of preemptively examining Toshiro before either the Head Captain arrived or ordained it safe to let Toshiro into the city. Ichigo was wary of that too; of what the old man would say and of what he would approve of and disapprove of, and how, inevitably, it would directly affect Toshiro's lifespan. That was too much power for someone like him to have at a time like this, even though he would have paid the worlds weight in gold to be able to trust the other man.

When the dragon began to finally reawaken, Ichigo couldn't have been more relieved at anything in his life. Unohana was still perched on him quite literally, as her gentle hand searched the flesh beneath the plated bone for something Ichigo could not define. Perhaps a sign of life, perhaps not. But even that was too simplistic for her intellect. She was searching for answers, he knew, but ones that suited only the questions in her own head. But when the muscles in his neck began to stir, she settled herself into a steady kneel on the plate on his shoulder, looking down with all the clinical curiosity of a diagnostician poring over a new case.

Those striking teal eyes blinked open slowly, jet black lids peeling back to reveal them to the fading evening's pastel drunk light. They remained glassy for a moment, unclear as they searched for purchase in what was probably a world of swirling color. But after a moment, a painstaking moment for Ichigo, they cleared. He thought that, had Jidanbo been around still, it would have been a nerve-wracking for him as well. But, under Captain Unohana's advice and his own want for peace for the dragon, he had sent him back to the gate, promising to let him know when Toshiro woke up and when Captain Yamamoto had made his decision or reached some manner of deliberation that would change their current situation.

For now it seemed that the only thing that had changed was the state of Toshiro's consciousness. Which, he supposed when put into perspective against Toshiro being unconscious entirely, had been a pretty big jump towards the "not so miserable" side of things. But considering things were still pretty damn miserable, especially with the dark evening storm clouds descending over the hills coming from the horizon and headed straight for the Seireitei.

"Welcome back, Captain Hitsugaya," the lady Captain addressed him in that caramelized ginger tone that she had when speaking to a patient. Toshiro lifted his head from the ground, remaining laying on his side in order to keep from disturbing his own wounds and Captain Unohana too much. Ichigo stood up from his place on the grass, brushing the dampness of the descending night's dew from his shihakusho pants as he walked over to where the other two were. He felt the ground under his feet vibrate as Toshiro made some comment, resting his head back down on the ground with a weary huff rattling out of his nostrils.

From the look on Unohana's face, she had _not_ been expecting _that_. Which wasn't surprising, considering how much there was odd about the situation; there was little that they could anticipate for sure when it was entirely an unknown instance that they were dealing with. And though there had never really been at time that Ichigo knew all the details of what he was doing in regards to the Soul Society, at least most times he was able to understand where he himself stood. He stood on the side of those who upheld law under the premise of it protecting lives. That was all it took… at first.

But not anymore. Especially not now. In the beginning, it was a war against a sociopath, who went against everything he'd ever loved or fought for. That was the easiest part to understand. The "good guys" had still been the "good guys" and the "bad guy" had still been the "bad guy". Nothing too complicated, nothing too subjective. But then, things had begun to change when his attachment to the people in the Soul Society had grown strong. Things had begun to change when the flaws in the Soul Society's hierarchy began to sift to the surface. Things had begun to change when the preservation of life was no longer at the forefront of the causes the Soul Society used to prompt their actions.

And all of it up to this point had led up to the current situation, that not only had Ichigo questioning his own motives, but the motives of the Soul Society, and, most disturbingly, the motives of the man he had set out as his enemy. Why was he protecting the Soul Society, really? Why did the Soul Society function the way it did? Why did Yamamoto make the decisions that he did, based on no evidence or rationale at all? Why did Aizen rebel, really? What was it that drove him to this "depravity" that everyone painted him so gruesomely with?

The answers didn't come to him, no matter how hard he tried to think a way to them. And his world didn't stop spinning with those damnable uncertainties until he realized that his hand was resting on Toshiro's elongated snout. He looked down, blinking his own glassiness away as Toshiro's teal eyes stared back up at him questioningly, through a lingering haze of tire and weariness that they both shared. He let out a breath he didn't realize that he'd been holding, trying to smile weakly down at where the dragon lay. He had to recover himself; re-tether himself to reality before it escaped him forever. And it seemed that the only person that was capable of even helping him do that was Toshiro anymore, probably because they were so far strained by the toils of the earth that they were the only two that could share in each other's sorrows if even for the softest most fleeting moment.

Ichigo was still thankful.

"Come on now, big guy, be nice," he said weakly, knowing that Toshiro was more likely to have made a dry comment than to have been uncharacteristically pleasant. And even though Captain Unohana had the capability of instilling obedience in even the wildest men, even her foul moods couldn't quite quell the snark that Toshiro carried around with him like a lucky charm. Or just a certain kind of charm in general, but Ichigo wasn't going to tease him about that when he felt so run down himself. He didn't have the energy to drudge up all the emotional implications that came with that type of teasing, and he didn't have the time to linger on lesser questions when the world was hanging on a hair.

"_I think that is the only time in my life that I've ever had someone call me big,_" the dragon replied, with a bit of a tired, but albeit genuine smile in his voice. Ichigo could see the thankful little twinkle in his eyes, and his own smile strengthened a bit because of it. Apparently sometimes sleep really was what the doctor ordered; even if it wasn't perhaps Unohana who had given the order. "_I don't know whether to scold you out of habit or enjoy it while I can_."

Ichigo sat down next to Toshiro's bottom jaw, leaving his hand wandering over the bone plates absently. He wondered if Toshiro could feel it at all, or if the bone was just a numb extension of some apparatus he had attached to him. That conundrum helped distract him for a moment, until he noticed Unohana getting down, and he was brought back to the lingering comment that Toshiro had made, left hanging out in the open by Ichigo's own distraction.

As if a sudden weight had been impressed upon his shoulders, Ichigo slumped against the underside of the dragon's jaw, letting his knees curl up a bit, enough for his chin to rest on them for a moment. "Trust me, Toshiro," he whispered, letting his hand rest for a moment, shaking on where he could actually feel the dragon's strangely silky black skin beneath the end of the plating, "enjoy it while you can. Please, enjoy this while you can."

He didn't have the heart to add the afterthought, "Because I don't think we'll have time to do that for long." He just couldn't bring himself to think so grimly, not when he was still clinging to the same hope that everyone was, including Toshiro.

"_Exspecto __dolor_," Toshiro's voice answered, and Ichigo both listened and watched mystified as the dragon's vocal cords vibrated beneath his fingers as the sound they produced rang in his ears like the saintly bells of a far off cathedral. And yet that close, intimate reality remained, grounding him down to the barest forms of realization and knowing until he felt stripped raw, yet gently encompassed all at once. "_Sed __et __alium expectamus __diem_."

He _knew_ this language, though he could not understand from where the knowledge came. Yet its sound, its feel, was one that he felt in that moment so intimate with that he could have closed the entire world away in favor of listening to it for one more second.

He was embittered towards reality when it came invading into his thoughts when Unohana's hand rested on his shoulder. He was embittered towards the world when it prevented him not only from having heard those words sooner, but preventing him from further hearing them. It was almost like a torture, but the more reality began to invade the more he began to realize that his reaction was extreme, even in his own mind. But that gave it no less validity, even as the details of their surroundings and of his true situation settled around him once more.

This, whatever it was, had rooted into deep soil within his soul, and had connected to something truly buried down there. Deeper than he could ever hope to imagine; deeper than even Zangetsu's presence went. It went deeper than the worlds' influences on him, deeper than the passage of time. This was the antithesis of the remembrance of time; this was akin to becoming time itself, and reaching betwixt the worlds of the known to the deep darkness that was existence and looking there were no eyes could see.

The face of the dragon looked at him with an equally stunned expression, if not more glassy and shell-shocked. Apparently it, whatever it was, had struck Toshiro as well, though apparently so much harder that it actually began to worry Ichigo as Toshiro's barely readable complexion wilted down to something searching and afraid. His teal eyes darted around the clearing, his pupils narrow little slits of primal panic as his mind saw things that Ichigo's, now detached, could not fathom. But he recognized that searching gaze, that panicked flare to the nostrils even if the body they were attached to was not at all human. It was the look of someone searching amongst the hazes of midnight terrors for the light of day and the palpability of reality.

"Toshiro!"

His cry caused an immediate reaction, and the dragon's head whipped around to face him. For a moment he was staring down the nose of an animal, the mind and inhabitant impossibly elsewhere. But as the reality of the hellish moment lingered, Ichigo realized that it was not fear for his life that he was feeling. It was not fear for his body, fear for his pride. It was fear for his _mind_, and its fate should it be lost down the same rabbit hole into oblivion that had swallowed Toshiro.

And yet the second he realized that, out emerged the little white spirit of the man fallen down the burrow, his teal eyes clearing as realization and delirium began to settle over him again. He spread the fingers of his forefeet as he visibly sagged against the ground, his righted position on his belly barely held by the quaking limbs. He breathed in slow, heavy pants that rasped up and down his throat like compressed air through a torn pipe; loudly, and with grating harshness.

He was bleeding again, Ichigo noted, as the crimson lines that ran between the tooth shaped slats on the mask glistened with new moisture. It was in that moment that Ichigo wished that the old saying of mind over matter wasn't quite so damnably right. Especially considering now it was more of Toshiro's mind that was plagued than his poor body… or _bodies_ if one wanted to get needlessly technical.

"Mr. Kurosaki," Captain Unohana's voice, painted with soothing worry even as she grasped his arm firmly to support him, "are you alright?"

The flat answer was that, no, he was nowhere even close to the realm of "fine". But that seemed moot at that point, along with the question she had even bothered asking. He shook his head, indicating that he wasn't alright, big surprise, but she didn't seem put off by that statement. She still held onto his bicep, looking between the two of them as if something akin to an explanation would solidify in the air between them. Nothing did; also a big surprise. But now that he was back on terra firma, Ichigo knew for a fact that this could not go on. It couldn't last any longer than it already had, otherwise Toshiro really would be lost down the rabbit hole of his own mind, where Ichigo could never hope to reach him.

"No, I'm not, and I won't be until all of this crap is sorted out," he replied candidly, looking apologetically over at the Captain after realizing how biting his words had been. He couldn't quite help it; he'd been sitting on his ass for hours doing _nothing_, watching _nothing_ happen, and getting a whole lot of _nothing_ sorted out. That, in his books, was the biggest God damned waste of time ever, in spite of how much Captain Unohana may have affirmed for herself.

"I understand, Mr. Kurosaki," the responded gently, luckily not nearly as angrily as she probably could have been justified for. "Hopefully things will get sorted out shortly; I sense Lieutenant Abarai and Lieutenant Matsumoto approaching. It is my hope for all our sakes that they come bearing good news."

Ichigo nodded, looking back to Toshiro. He seemed more lucid now, calmer and less confused in spite of the thoughts obviously racing across his eyes. The words from before still rang in Ichigo's head, and he knew that even shaking his head would not dispel them. Nothing would dislodge them now; they were like a part of him that had been missing… or that would be missing at some point. He couldn't even quite describe it to himself, but after a moment of tying his head in knots he stopped trying to.

For a moment, he glanced back to Unohana, unsure of one particular detail that would be rather pertinent regardless of what news Renji and Rangiku brought. That simple fact was that they the four of them could probably not lift Toshiro. It had taken both he and Renji, and Tessai, who made two of both Unohana and Rangiku combined, to lift him. And something told him that unless Jidanbo was coming with them, they would require a lot more assistance to get him up.

"Can you tell if Jidanbo is coming with them?" he asked, voicing his thoughts before time ran out. Unohana paused for a moment, before shaking her head. That would indeed pose a problem for them, and he glanced back to Toshiro, who had apparently overheard their entire conversation. But there was a glittering keenness in his eyes that had not been there before; nor had it been there since their entire endeavor had begun. It intrigued Ichigo, because mostly it implied that the dragon had something up his sleeve.

Well… _armor_.

"What is it, Toshiro?" he asked, watching the other as the dragon's body settled into what appeared to be a rather awkward position. It was like he was trying to scoot himself backwards, so that his legs were stretched away from his body. One fiery eyebrow rose, and Toshiro seemed to catch the look well enough. He held one black skinned finger up, indicating for him to wait.

Then, in a massive surge of what was probably the only energy he had left from his nap, Toshiro hauled himself up onto his feet, using his stretched limbs clawing into the turf for leverage as his massive head and rippling muscles pulled the rest of him up. He was unsteady for a moment as he resettled his footing to accommodate his injuries, but it only lasted for a moment until he was standing in a relatively stable position. From which point he gave a full body shake, apparently displeased by the settling of his own plates. The sound of each bony plate hitting another was akin to the sound of breaking china; tinkling in an almost musical way, yet grating and unnatural.

He looked down at Ichigo with an almost "I told you so" look, before craning his neck to where Renji and Rangiku had landed in the clearing. They both seemed stunned that Toshiro was standing, and that in spite of his wounds he seemed so lively. Ichigo was surprised as well, knowing just how grievous the wounds had seemed at first. And, though he couldn't speak for everyone, he did know that after a while one could become accommodated to the pain and weather it more reasonably. Though, he couldn't fathom just how much of that pain Toshiro was weathering anymore, considering there had to be an exorbitant amount of it to begin with.

"What do you have to report from Head Captain Yamamoto?" Always the first to return to business, Unohana redirected their vagabond group to the actual issue at hand. Ichigo paid attention, knowing that Toshiro was already doing so. Which was rather pitiful when thought about; that a wounded, mentally displaced midget had better topic tracking skills than a perfectly sober human being.

Both Renji and Rangiku's expressions were odd mixes of emotions. They were relieved, yet tired, and the slightest bit wary. It was as if they were gladdened by what the Head Captain had decided, but unsure of how to really react to his orders. That was concerning in and of itself, but Ichigo, unlike Yamamoto, wouldn't jump to conclusions so easily. He would stave off the bad news until he knew it was actually bad news.

"Head Captain Yamamoto has given clearance to Captain Hitsugaya to enter the Seireitei," Renji stated first, and even the group that had just arrived sighed a collective breath of relief. But from the look on Rangiku's face, it was a bit preemptive.

"However, he has requested that Captain Hitsugaya be escorted to the Squad 12 Commons immediately so that he may be examined by the Research Department and a proper assessment of the situation may be achieved," she explained grudgingly, looking at her Captain apologetically. But Ichigo understood that Toshiro knew that it had nothing to do with any fault of hers; it was the fault of a system that looked before it leapt. The strawberry blond was biting at her lip nervously, as if fighting the urge to go against the order, in spite of it being direct. For once, someone's humanity was actually painting their actions in the Soul Society! It was almost unheard of… save for all the things that had occurred that Head Captain Yamamoto hadn't sanctioned.

Before any of them could give a proper answer, a frustrated chilly huff resounded from Toshiro's flared nostrils. He shook his head in a regal manner, setting the row of tines along his back to a clicking ripple as he expressed his annoyance. Ichigo, who was unquestioningly closest, pressed a hand to the dragon's side, wanting to catch what he said before it was lost on everyone. But Toshiro was much more used to the system than Ichigo realized, and had actually waited until Ichigo touched him to continue.

"_We aren't getting any answers out here,_" he said, glancing down at Ichigo seriously. There was a faint, fleeting glimmer of distrust at his own words, but Ichigo was sure he was the only one who caught it. He knew without needing to ask that Toshiro didn't entirely mean what he said; not when that stunning moment of… heaven knew what, had passed between them. That was getting answers of some kind, though probably not the kind they were looking for or needed quite yet. Ichigo would have also begged to differ, seeing as Unohana seemed to have made some progress on her private vendetta, but he knew that Urahara himself had said that they had not the tools to properly examine Toshiro's current vessel. And in spite of how much he hated admitting it, the only place that had those tools was Squad 12. "_So for now, our best option is to do as the Captain Commander says. If need be we can take care of things in an alternative way should the circumstance arise._"

Ichigo let his hand slip from Toshiro's plating, repeating what the icy Captain had stated even as his mind hung onto the words. They just seemed… odd. Foreboding, actually now that he thought about it. It was as if Toshiro had about as much faith in Squad 12 figuring out what was going on as Ichigo had in Head Captain Yamamoto becoming the next Dalai Lama.

But how exactly they would "take care of things" themselves was a bit hard to imagine. All along he'd been hanging on the hope that once Toshiro's soul was returned to the Soul Society, things could be sorted out and fixed. That which was broken would be mended, that which was lost would be found again, things of that like and manner. And he didn't like at all the idea of it not being so at all.

He didn't realize they'd been walking until they reached the Western Gate of the Soul Society. He didn't realize he'd subconsciously been walking by Toshiro's front shoulders, the side of his hand brushing against the dragon's leg with each stride until Toshiro stopped moving altogether. He looked about him, watching the light fade over the Seireitei as the golden sun retreated behind the horizon and the veil of clouds that lay gathering there like mourners garbed in black.

Jidanbo was proclaiming vociferously how glad he was that Captain Hitsugaya was alright, being surprisingly calm enough to resist touching him. Ichigo was thankful, because it probably would have hurt Toshiro much more than Jidanbo, even if the brute had gotten a hand full of those tines. As it stood, he just kept babbling his pleased piffle at all of them as he hefted open the gate, having to stretch even as far as his towering height would allow to leave enough space for the dragon to enter.

The entourage of normal sized Soul Reapers entered first, watching as the dragon calmly stepped under the gate. Ichigo even caught Toshiro giving Jidanbo a curt nod, knowing that the other wouldn't be able to understand anything he said unless contact was made. And that would involve not holding up the gate that he was standing under, which would involve a lot of inconvenient pain. But Jidanbo seemed to beam anyway, thankful for even the slightest recognition from the dragon he had found unconscious in the forest earlier that day.

Ichigo still hung back as soon as their group began to navigate the labyrinthine streets of the Seireitei, keeping by Toshiro's shoulder as he watched the Soul Reapers all but clamber onto the roofs in order to get a good look at what had become of one of their Captains. Here, Toshiro could not hide. Not in the trees, not in the buildings, not anywhere. He was exposed, for what exactly he was or wasn't couldn't be determined just yet. But now he was getting a taste of what it was like to be larger than life in the literal sense; not just in the figurative sense. His head towered over even the multi-leveled structures of the Division Headquarters; though he was still dwarfed by the towers of the Repentance Cells off in the distance.

Ichigo would be astounded if, at the end of all of this, Toshiro had even an iota of pride left. This was akin to being put on exhibit for the humor and amusement of others. At least, Ichigo saw it that way until he actually looked at the Soul Reapers watching them pass. They all bore worried expressions, to be sure, which was the first unusual thing. But secondly, they all also seemed reverent in that undying respectful way that obedient officers were of their Higher Ups. So in spite of everything, it appeared that his men, and the men of the other divisions, still viewed him as a Captain and as a superior officer.

Ichigo thought he deserved more credit than that, considering he had survived hell and come back still walking like a man. He had faced adversity, stared it down, and conquered what had stood in his way. And, with help or without, that was an impressive feat regardless. Taking into consideration his injuries, and his enemy especially.

When a flash of white caught his eye on one of the higher rooftops, Ichigo realized that it wasn't just division members that were watching their slow progression to Squad 12's commons. Captains were assembling also, staring on only for a moment if they weren't personally vested; like Soi Fon for instance. He only caught sight of her for a moment, but he knew she had been there, because the trademark black hooded members of the Omnistukido were left in her wake.

Other Captains, much more vested Captains, stayed longer, and even made to join their procession after a time. Captain Ukitake and Captain Kyoraku were unsurprisingly the first to arrive and join in with their group, gaping and looking on in curious befuddlement as Toshiro did his best to keep walking on his wound beset leg.

"I guess we can't exactly call him little anymore, can we Shiro?" Captain Kyoraku commented idly to Ukitake as they walked, tilting his hat up to get a better look at the dragon's imperial face. What he got as a response, instead of an answer from Ukitake, was a snort of subarctic air aimed at him. He laughed, brushing the actual frost that had gathered on his garments because of the rush of air. "But he certainly is himself still, that's for sure."

Ichigo managed the catch the slightly bitter, "_Who else would I be but who I am, regardless of vessel or shape_?" that Toshiro had probably meant to be intoned only to his own thoughts. But he could feel the grumble vibrating in the dragon's chest which gave the rest of the group the general idea of an unhappy vocalization. 'If only they knew what Toshiro really thought of all this,' he thought to himself even as he tucked his hand away to keep from overhearing any more of Toshiro's thoughts. 'If only _I_ knew what Toshiro _really_ thought of all this.'

But he knew that even if he did know, it probably would only make things more difficult in the end, wherever it may lie.

It was only by the fading blushing light of the retiring sunset by which they arrived at Squad 12. Their brigade had been joined by no other Captains save for Ukitake and Kyoraku, but had been spectated by all of the rest. Thus, knowing after having watched all of the faces of the other Captains pass by, Ichigo was rather surprised to find all of them assembled in the massive courtyard outside the labs tucked into the hidey holes of the 12 Division. He didn't like the place. He'd never really gone there before, but he got an ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he walked by or even heard about it. It was like walking by an armory with live nuclear weapons inside; chilling in a way that went deeper than the skin or the other senses could comprehend.

Captain Yamamoto was there as well, and Ichigo was unsure whether or not to be thankful. At least now he could really hear with his own ears what the old man had to say. He kept one hand clenched at his side, hearing Toshiro's words in his head one more time. He didn't doubt that should they need to take care of their own business that they would be able to, but he was praying incessantly that it wouldn't come to that. Heaven knew, it was about the last thing they needed at a time like this to be stateless and enemies.

But his main priority at the moment was keeping his comments to himself as the old man's eyes, barely cracked open, gazed in a long lingering sweep over the dragon standing in front of him. He seemed to take longer than the rest to deliberate on whatever was going through his mind, whereas everyone else seemed to have already drawn their conclusions. Soi Fon was wary of the entire ordeal; he could see it in the stance and the tenseness around her feet. Byakuya's gaze lingered on all of them, searching Toshiro's appearance surprisingly the most unassumingly. It was as if he were trying to discern for himself just how to accept the fact that this was still the Captain of the 10th; just in a form they none of them were familiar with. Captain Komamura looked stunned; even as he stood there. Ichigo could see that he was practically drooling over the fact that now another Captain knew his plight of being trapped in such a bestial form. Kenpachi looked bored as always, but there was that mischievous little twinkling in his eyes that let Ichigo know that the brute was _very_ interested in testing the limits of Toshiro's new form; especially considering his spiritual pressure had been multiplied an unprecedented amount.

And Mayuri… Ichigo was almost afraid to look. The man's cold metallic eyes roamed over the dragon's form like he was examining a dead body just seconds before he cut it open to look inside. His painted white hands were wringing themselves, desperate to get on with this investigation. Ichigo _hated_ the sadistic glee he could feel tingeing the man's spiritual pressure; it almost made him physically ill to himself. But Mayuri hung back for the moment, waiting impatiently for Head Captain Yamamoto to say something or explain himself. All of them hung back, waiting.

"Well, Captain Hitsugaya," the old man said, his voice booming over the courtyard. "It does appear that Lieutenant Abarai and Lieutenant Matsumoto were correct in their report. Rest assured that, now that you have been safely returned to the Soul Society, your situation will be handled in the most immediate fashion possible."

Ichigo didn't bother commenting on how sometimes faster wasn't always better when it came to chess, knowing that it was probably not the best time.

Ichigo watched out of the corner of his eyes to gauge Toshiro's reaction. He'd been relatively quiet up to this point, which was rather unusual. However, he then understood why the other had not vocalized when the draconian head, crowned with a greater mantel than any man could ever hope to compare, began to bow. The whole courtyard watched in rapt awe as the dragon bowed its head low, even dipping one of its front legs beneath its chest to give the fully effective gesture.

No animal would have bowed to a superior officer, especially not considering how much effort it must have taken. But Toshiro seemed to get himself back up well enough in spite of the change in static position.

"Head Captain Yamamoto, this is a disgrace," Mayuri complained vocally, drawing the entire courtyard's attention to the twisted man. The elder Captain did not seem amused, but nor did he seem to feel the need to ask what the Squad 12 Director meant, probably already knowing that Mayuri was more than loquacious enough to want to continue talking all by himself. "The specimen is horridly damaged! How do you expect me to be able to dissect it when there's so much of it that's been ruined?"

Ichigo could have sworn that his fist would have been imbedded in Mayuri's face had it not been for Captain Unohana's vice grip on his arm. He still jerked against her grasp, wanting more than a bit sorely to give the man his just desserts, if only for the lewd comment he'd just made. Let alone for the idea that he didn't want to save Toshiro, or understand what he was going through, but that he wanted to _dissect_ him just for the sake of wanting to. But before the small congregation could burst into further riot against one another, Unohana wisely stepped in.

"It is my assessment, Captain Kurotsuchi, that after having examined Captain Hitsugaya's condition, that he is fit for examination by Squad 12, should no invasive measures be taken preemptively," she said, her tone as cool and silken as always, but with that iron fist hanging just behind the veil of kindness that sent the courtyard plummeting into silence. "But seeing as you seem to be so enamored with the matter, I would like to request of Head Captain Yamamoto that you not be the one to conduct the examination."

The sadist roared with anger, seething from across the clearing. "You impudent little-"

"Enough." Thankfully, Yamamoto's voice seemed more than capable of silencing the warmongering Kurotsuchi. "In such a situation, I cannot help but concede to Captain Unohana's request. Surely Captain Kurotsuchi you will be allowed to oversee the examination process. But due to previous issues with your record in that department, I cannot ignore them in favor of humoring you. This is a matter of utmost importance, and as few risks as possible must be taken in order to achieve the answers we seek. That includes exposing Captain Hitsugaya to as little risk as possible."

The Captain was still roiling with rage, looking to be on the verge of a tantrum akin to what a toddler might pull when displeased. "How can you still call that _thing_ a Captain? I am fully capable of understanding how its form may have been a state forced upon it, but as it stands it bears no resemblance to anything even remotely worthy of that title!" he bellowed, his hissing voice grating against Ichigo's ears with every venomous word. "And I refuse to show such respect to an _animal_ whose only real worth is to be dissected, regardless of what you pig-headed fools think!"

The crowd at hand, including Ichigo, was already bursting into rebukes he had even finished. And, had not it been for Toshiro stopping him directly, Ichigo would have gladly cut off the heathen's head himself for such unrequited remarks. But as it unfolded, one of the dragon's front legs stepped in front of him, barring his way from what would probably have been a moot battle anyway. He looked up at Toshiro's looming figure as the silence settled around the rest of the group. They had seen what Toshiro had done, apparently, and had swiftly fallen back to tense peace.

The Squad 10 Captain cast Ichigo a fleeting, furtive glance before looking back to Yamamoto, whose instructions had originally been interrupted. The rest of the still bitter group followed suit, their collective silence uneasy and distrusting.

"Captain Kurotsuchi, it is never in your duty to question an order from your superior," the aged man noted, and Ichigo had the strange childish urge to pump his fist in the air and stick his tongue out in Mayuri's general direction, but something told him that he would have gotten scolded for such juvenile behavior before he could even finish his bump. And, a pity though that would have been, he knew they would have been justified in doing so. Thus, he remained quiet, celebrating in Mayuri's scolding only within the confines of his own mind. "Thus, when I order that you are to oversee the examination of _Captain_ Hitsugaya's current condition, it is your duty to comply. I will place your Third Seat, Akon, in charge of all physical examinations. Thus, your and your Lieutenant's duties will consist of analyzing the data and reaching the proper scientific conclusions."

Mayuri was grumbling throughout the entire explanation, his arms crossed over his chest in the only act of defiance that he would ever be able to get away with, especially with Yamamoto.

"I will also be assigning Captain Unohana to the duty of supervising all physical examinations. As it seems, she has already made a preemptive examination, and her input will be critical to the final report." With that, the Head Captain finally took the liberty to look straight at the dragon's face; having avoided doing so the entire time.

Ichigo was a bit put off by the show of impugnation, until he realized that Yamamoto must have been watching the dragon's behavior in order to assure for himself that it was actually Toshiro. Ichigo hope he found what he was looking for, because if it wasn't obvious from the start who it was, he was sure it would have been made obvious through Toshiro's total lack of bestial behavior, especially around people. He was actually being more civil than Mayuri; though that wasn't something terribly unusual considering even Kenpachi was more civil than Mayuri to an extent.

"Captain Hitsugaya, rest assured that we will do whatever it takes to rectify this situation," he assured firmly, before turning to Ichigo. The young Kurosaki knew that his presence would be questioned at some point, but he was loathe to think that it would be so soon. He was the one that had even alerted them to Toshiro's status in the first place. He was the one who had found him; it was more than right for him to be able to stay and see things through. But he knew that the Soul Society didn't exactly function on what was only right; it functioned on what was practical. But even then, his presence was more than justified by the fact that he could probably tell them a lot more about what was going on as he figured it out for himself, so that lingering need of him being there for supplemental explanation could still be held in high regard.

"Ichigo Kurosaki, you will assist Captain Unohana and input any further information you may have on this matter." Ichigo was quite literally stunned speechless. For once in the entire time that he had known Captain Yamamoto, even from a distance, the man was doing something _rational_. He could barely believe his luck, and held his breath at the older man continued to speak to the rest of the assembled group. "The final report shall be deferred to me when it has been assembled. Until then, the rest of you may return to your duties. It may be asked that some of you stand guard over the course of the night, but should positions need to be filled, you will be alerted. Dismissed."

Much to Ichigo's surprise, the majority of the Captains assembled did not leave right away. He heard Soi Fon leave, barking out orders to her men probably in an attempt to establish a more stable perimeter. Of course Unohana didn't leave; she was one of the few required to actually stay. In fact, even as she stood there, waiting for the crowd to disperse so she could get to her work, she turned to Ukitake and Kyoraku, who had both remained.

"Captain Ukitake, Captain Kyoraku, would you please return to Squad 4 and assist Isane with attending to and guarding Captain Hitsugaya's body? I want to keep a close eye on it now that the soul is back within the same spatial proximity. If anything changes, alert me immediately," she said, nodding them off as they set to the task she had indicated. It was a wise idea; considering none of them knew what to expect now that Toshiro's soul and real body actually exited within the same plane together.

He wondered idly if it was an odd feeling; knowing that your real body was elsewhere as the one you were inhabiting stood only as a vessel and a tool.

* * *

-Okay, for those of you that haven't been informed or read my other author's notes for my other fics, I have taken down the poll for the pairing to be featured in fic two because I have already decided myself what it will be. For a while it was variable; but now that the series has solidified into a trilogy, it has also defined itself. Sorry to supplant all of you, but you are only a democracy in so far as you comply with my desires as Dictator and Chief. I'm not sure how much more I have to say, other than that I'm going to be working on another AU fic along with my next set of drabbles. I may try to get 200 done by the end of February, but that may not work for… sneaky reasons. Anyway, enjoy this chapter, and I will see you next month for its next update!

8-90s love,

crypto


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